Big Brother 27 winner Ashley Hollis was apparently looking to fix her relationship with castmate Mickey Lee in the weeks before Lee’s unexpected death.
Ashley, 25, shared a screenshot of a text message she sent to Mickey, 35, via her Instagram Story on Friday, December 26, one day after Mickey died. The slide has since been deleted.
“My last text to Mickey,” she wrote over the screenshot. “I felt called to reach out to her for some reason a few weeks ago…and I’m so glad I did.”
Ashley blacked out a portion of the text message, but from what she shared, it appears she was trying to reconcile with Mickey after the two went back and forth in interviews and via social media after the season ended.
“I didn’t really wanna approach it in public with fans around and stuff!” Ashley texted. “But I wanted to reach out because I honestly didn’t like the way things transpired between us and I did really care about you in the house. I don’t want beef w u and I don’t want the two black girls to be pit against each other. I don’t like that! So I wanted to be the bigger person and reach out to squash the 🥩.”
She later expanded in a post via X, writing, “I posted that because y’all continue to bash me saying I never liked mickey but that’s a lie….. I had nothing to gain from reaching out to her a few weeks ago, but peace of mind and a hope for rekindling. I can’t believe Mickey is really gone………..”
Ashley did not reveal if Mickey responded or if the two ever had a chance to hash things out.
Mickey died on Thursday, December 25, after being hospitalized due to complications from the flu that caused her to experience multiple cardiac arrests, according to statements from her family.
“The Big Brother family is heartbroken today,” producers Allison Grodner, Rich Meehan and Chris Roach wrote in a statement to Us Weekly on Friday. “Mickey was a stand out on the show and in life. A force of nature. A bright light and someone we are lucky to have had in our lives. Our thoughts are with her family on this sad day.”
While Ashley wasn’t explicit about the meaning behind her text, it came after Mickey, who was Black, implied Ashley is not a “traditional Black girl.”
“I am 100 percent African American,” Mickey said in a September interview with Big Brother 24 winner Taylor Hale for Entertainment Tonight. “I come from areas where I do experience a lot of racism. I’ve never had a leg up in certain opportunities. I think I am the only one that experienced that. I do believe that Ashley is African American as well, but we do come from different backgrounds. When I say traditional Black girl, I mean the ones that people always stereotype.”
She later clarified her comments in an October video, saying, “Never did I ever say that I felt like I was the only real Black woman or the only Black woman on the show at all. What I did say was I felt like I was the only traditional Black woman in the house. And in hindsight, I definitely did use the wrong word choice and what I truly meant was stereotypical Black woman…All I was trying to express [that] I felt like the only Black woman, Black person in that house that was being treated through a stereotypical lens. And that’s it.”
She added, “I didn’t have time to properly process or put together or properly express my thoughts at that moment. But under no circumstances was I ever trying to invalidate or devalue anyone else’s Blackness. I was really just trying to focus on my experience and how I felt.”
Ashley fired back on TikTok with a video on October 27, captioned, “When someone says you’re not ‘traditionally black’, meanwhile you have two black parents 💀😂🙄 hmm..”
The video featured Ashley lipsyncing to T-Pain’s song “Up Down (Do This All Day)” as she was joined by her parents.
“Looks like two Black parents to me,” she wrote over the video.
Read the full article here
