I’ll be honest, even as I was covering the Sasha Exeter-Jessica Mulroney drama last summer, I believed Jessica would be able to “come back” pretty easily. I mean, she has money and access and powerful friends. All she had to do was be quiet for six months, then apologize thoroughly and begin to move on. That’s it. And it probably wouldn’t have even taken six months! But Jessica was incapable of both shutting up and offering a sincere apology, which made her completely self-imposed melodrama so much worse. Even if you believed Jessica deserved the benefit of the doubt in June, by November, everyone was sick of her self-absorbed, bratty Karen act.

To recap, the whole thing started last June, when Instagram influencer Sasha Exeter was using her social media for a call to action on Black Lives Matter and racial justice. In Sasha’s version of events, Jessica took it personally that Sasha was encouraging other influencers to use their platforms similarly, and they began DMing, texting and emailing an increasingly hostile back-and-forth which ended when Jessica threatened Sasha’s livelihood if Sasha made any of their conversation public. Well, after Jessica’s November interview with the National Post fell flat as a f–king pancake, Jessica is at it again. This time she went to a “friendly” columnist at the same outlet, the National Post, and provided the alleged paper trail between herself and Exeter. The NP columnist used the email and text trail to declare that Mulroney is completely exonerated from the crime of being a racist brat. *deep sigh*

Jessica Mulroney turned over eight printed-out pages of what she says are her private correspondence with Sasha Exeter to Canada’s National Post in an effort to tell more of her side of the story…Though Exeter has not commented on the Post story, the paper has published what they claim to be the entirety of the correspondence between the two women, beginning on May 31, when Exeter apparently took offense to Mulroney posting a Martin Luther King Jr. quote on her Instagram, as the worldwide protests that followed the death of George Floyd were building.

“You have a large following and should be posting about BLM, not promoting your show,” Exeter writes. Mulroney replies, “I’ve spoken out about racism before. I believe that the real work needs to be teaching my children, doing work behind the scenes.” The next day, Exeter says that she “can’t find the words” to express her displeasure in the stylist’s belief that fighting racism “behind the scenes” is enough, adding, “I am deeply disappointed in the response. But your response will be discussed with my community and followers. If you cannot be uncomfortable for a few minutes and fear what people will say to you, just imagine how ppl [sic] of color have felt their entire lives. It is a cop out. It is cowardly. It is sad and pathetic.”

The pair then apparently spoke on the phone before moving their conversation from DM to text, in which Mulroney compares promoting her TV show to Exeter posting her own sponsored content, to which Exeter replies, “…don’t ever compare yourself to me. Ever.… Don’t ever compare yourself to me. Especially right now.” After a few more days of back-and-forth, Mulroney—who claimed to the Post that she was “fearful of where Sasha’s anger will take her”—attempts an apology. “I had a moment to think and I want to apologize,” she writes. “I was wrong. Comparing myself to you was wrong and what you are doing is all the good the world needs. I will do better and be better.”

Exeter then sends her final message, telling Mulroney, “Your comments in yesterday’s text thread are so problematic, you have no idea. It’s textbook Amy Cooper.” (Two days later she posted her Instagram video about the back-and-forth, calling it “My ‘Amy Cooper’ Experience.”) It was when Exeter stopped responding that Mulroney sent the message that Exeter would eventually use as an accusation. After writing, “Your silence is understood. We don’t always do it the right way. But we learn from our mistakes. Take care,” Mulroney followed up with, “If you go to the press over this nonsense and threaten to go to your followers, I won’t be afraid to go to brands and tell them what you are doing to me.”

Mulroney apologized again after that message, despite telling the outlet she “is still unsure what her mistake is or was,” but the damage, it seems, was done. (Exeter did not respond to Vanity Fair’s request for comment.) Though the newly published messages don’t necessarily reveal anything new about Mulroney, Exeter, or their falling-out, the National Post seems eager to paint it as a full exoneration for Mulroney. “Jessica Mulroney is innocent of the moral crimes she has been so unjustly charged with,” the writer, Barbara Kay, concludes.

[From Vanity Fair]

My blood pressure spiked at “Mulroney—who claimed to the Post that she was ‘fearful of where Sasha’s anger will take her’.” No, really, Jessica really thought she was doing something here, didn’t she? Don’t get me wrong, I think Sasha had frayed nerves (as did so many) and she was looking to challenge someone. But Jessica DID threaten Sasha. And Jessica is still leaning so heavily into the racist tropes. Her story is still some version of “The Angry Black Woman Made Me Cry White Tears!” Which is what her argument was back in June too!!

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.