Mal Wright From The Ultimatum Reads Your Thirsty DMs

When Wright was confronted with the reality of being The Ultimatum: Queer Love’s first, and only, Black participant, her first thought was about how she would be portrayed on the show. “I just wanted to make sure that whenever they did get to editing, it’s done the right way. Don’t give me the angry Black woman trope because I’m not that. Don’t do that to us. And in fact, most of my friends aren’t that either,” Wright is getting animated, not angry, recounting her feelings. “Or I’m masc-presenting so now I’m (portrayed as) this extremely butch, toxic, masculine man. Like, that’s not it either,” she says. “I try to make sure it’s very clear that I am not a monolith for Black queerness. I’m just a really, really tiny, tiny fraction of a really large library of Black queer stories that should be told right. Talk about our stories, put more of us on these shows.”