When Michaela Coel went looking for a home for the show that became I May Destroy You, she walked away from a Netflix offer, reported to be worth about a million dollars, because the streamer would not let her keep a share of the copyright.
She took the show to the BBC and HBO instead, on terms that let her keep ownership. In September 2021 it won her the Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie or Dramatic Special. She was the first Black woman to win it.
Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson
Coel was born in London to Ghanaian immigrant parents who separated before she was born, and she was raised by her mother in Tower Hamlets, east London. Her birth name, Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson, carries her Ghanaian roots. She found her way into performance through poetry and church, and she studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Chewing Gum
Her first big success was Chewing Gum, the E4 sitcom she created and starred in, based on her play Chewing Gum Dreams. She played Tracey Gordon, a sheltered, religious young woman from a London council estate desperate to lose her virginity. The show ran from 2015 to 2017 and won Coel a BAFTA for Best Female Comedy Performance. It also brought her to the attention of Netflix, which streamed it internationally.
I May Destroy You
I May Destroy You came from Coel’s own experience. While writing the second series of Chewing Gum, she was sexually assaulted after her drink was spiked. The new show, released in 2020, follows Arabella, a young writer in London who tries to piece together what happened to her on a night she cannot remember.
Coel wrote the series, co-directed it and played the lead. It was hailed by critics as one of the best television dramas of the year, and it won her a BAFTA for Best Actress as well as the Emmy.
The speech
At the Emmys, Coel dedicated her award to survivors of sexual assault. Her speech included a line that spread widely afterwards, urging writers to “write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn’t comfortable”.
Earlier, in her 2018 MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival, she had spoken about her experiences as a Black working-class woman in British television, and about the assault. The lecture made her one of the most talked-about voices in the industry before the show was even on air.
After the Emmy
Coel joined the Marvel universe in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) as Aneka, and she has continued to write and develop her own work, keeping the control she fought for. Her 2021 book, Misfits: A Personal Manifesto, expanded on the ideas in her MacTaggart lecture.
The Netflix deal she turned down would have paid her faster. The show she kept ownership of won her an Emmy, two BAFTAs across her career and a say in what happens to her work next.
