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‘Summer House’ star Mya Allen opens up about hateful messages from trolls online: 'My Black experience is real'

Tune in to We Should Talk every Thursday, where In The Know’s Gibson Johns interviews your favorite celebrities and influencers. Subscribe to We Should Talk here.

Mya Allen has been the breakout star of Summer House this season, but her experience hasn’t been without its tough moments.

In an interview for the most recent episode of In The Know’s pop culture interview series We Should Talk, the founder of the Knead blog opened up about both the love and unwarranted hate that she’s received online since joining the Bravo hit, in addition to the friendships, the drama and the most talked-about moments from Season 6.

Listen to Summer House star Mya Allen’s full episode of We Should Talk below, and keep reading for highlights from the interview:

On racist hate she has received on social media as the show airs: I’m not afraid to speak my mind, and that is the most challenging. I have to talk myself out of replying to the tougher comments. […] Given the race conversation, I’ve had a lot of comments about race. I think that that’s a given. I’ve never been called the N-word so many times in my life, and that in itself is damaging, but I also have a platform now that I want to spread some level of positivity and empowerment around being a person of color. When I’m feeling like I want to react and educate someone, I don’t know that I have the tools right now to do it in a way that’s going be productive. So, I’ve been shying away and I haven’t been as open about responding, especially to the race stuff. I’m being judged, and I’m scared to continuously be the girl that plays the race card. That’s what I get anyway. […] My Black experience is real, and learning and navigating and determining when to respond and when not to has been extremely hard, because I feel like I have to keep myself quiet and I hate that.

On her own fight with Austen Kroll: He just caused so much chaos. I can’t even begin to describe the vibe. He almost got into a fight with every person that lived in that house. He got in a fight with me! He tried to come for me. I was like, “I don’t even know you!” He basically told me that I don’t have a say because it’s more his house than it is mine, which I didn’t take lightly. There’s a small scene where everyone else is blowing up, and you can see me and Austen, and you can see my hands in the back moving animatedly by the fire. And I can tell when I was like, “Oh, hell no. That’s not what we’re doing here. I live here. You don’t. Show me some respect, or continue your rampage away from me.”

On what she wanted from the show and how it affected her: My goals going into this were don’t get drunk, don’t embarrass yourself and don’t cry on camera. As everyone’s seen, I cry a lot, apparently! I cry more than I was aware that I cry. Watching this back, I’m like, “I promise I’m fun! I’m not just this girl going through all of this emotional trauma!” No, that’s not entirely who I am. But my expectations going into it were wrong. I didn’t expect to heal during it, but I did expect to have a better sense of self afterward, and I definitely know that I gained that. You can only trust yourself in these moments, and I started to have much more trust in myself and my intuition and my gut while navigating the summer.

On how being on the show has affected her business, the Knead blog: Right now, business is entirely insane. I can’t put it into words! I thought I was prepared; I was not prepared. But, I always wanted to do a business where I would just drop cookies similar to a Beyoncé album drop, and now I have the platform to do that. So, now I have a waiting list. I’m not taking orders right now. I’m catching up! I have a waitlist of people who want that next drop, and I plan on doing a lot of drops around the reunion and a lot of drops around the finale to get people really excited for the end of the season. And then we’ll continue to do that as the year goes on.

Watch In The Know’s full interview with Mya Allen below, and tune in to Summer House Mondays at 9 p.m. ET only on Bravo:

If you enjoyed this interview, check out In The Know’s recent chat about “Summer House” with Danielle Olivera here!

The post ‘Summer House’ star Mya Allen on the ups and downs of being this season’s breakout star appeared first on In The Know.

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