Angela Yee Shares #MeToo Story From Past Workplace
One-third of The Breakfast Club’s trio of hosts Angela Yee has paved her own path as one of modern radio’s most famed media personalities and podcast hosts. But her journey didn’t come without pitfalls, one of which she shared with Variety. Speaking with the outlet, Yee shared her #MeToo experience with a former boss, which ultimately cost the Lip Service podcaster her first industry job.
“This happened 10 years ago and you didn’t say anything; why are you saying it now?” she said of possible criticisms from sharing her story. “Because I didn’t feel like I could.”
At age 22, Yee said that her boss expressed to her that she should sleep with him. “I was horrified,” she recollected. “I didn’t know what to do, but I didn’t quit at that time. I have bills to pay. Am I not going to be able to work in this business anymore?”
Afterward, she said her boss did not return to work for the three days after she declined his unwarranted request. “I would never do that if you were the last person on this planet,” she remembered telling him.
Unfortunately and unexpectedly, Yee revealed that she was laid off from the company just a few days later with two weeks of severance pay.
In her own moment of revenge, however, Yee recalls getting back at her former workplace when she started her first major job with hip-hop’s iconic Wu-Tang Clan. She first started interning with the group before being promoted to helping manage them. “[The former bosses] had a car service account, and I gave some of the Wu-Tang guys the account information,” she said. “They were taking cars to the Poconos, going to the grocery store, taking the cars around the corner. For a whole month, they ran that bill up crazy… That made me feel good.”
Yee also recounted her turbulent relationship with her current co-host Charlamagne Tha God. Their recent beef comes after Charla did a separate one-on-one interview on (Oct. 21) without his usual co-hosts, where he did not intervene in Gucci Mane’s nasty rant towards Yee.
As for where the two coworkers stand today, “We’ve always been the same,” she said. “We work together. It is what it is.” Yee also spoke of her experience as the only woman on a show dominated by the voices of two men.
“I was taught in radio: if somebody is talking, then you don’t talk over them. Sometimes, it’s hard to even speak. Sometimes being the only woman on the show, I have to always try to cut in.”
She also acknowledged she’s the only one who does the ground and legwork behind the scenes before guests appear on the show. “I’m also the person who’s doing the research; watching the shows; reading the books.”
“They’re jumping in with their opinions, but somebody has to present the stories. It doesn’t leave as much space for you to say, ‘OK, here’s what I think.’ I express myself a lot more outside of that show,” she said.
For the time being, Yee can still be heard daily on The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1’s iHeartRadio channel.
