Next year, a film adaptation of the young adult fantasy book Children of Blood and Bone is set to arrive in theaters. The movie is being helmed by acclaimed Love & Basketball director Gina Prince-Bythewood and has some of the biggest Black stars in Hollywood attached, including Cynthia Erivo, Viola Davis, Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Amandla Stenberg. One person who won’t be part of the promotional campaign leading up to the movie’s January premiere, however, is the book’s author, Tomi Adeyemi, who has put out videos distancing herself from the project, claiming she won’t even watch it when it comes out.
Plenty of authors don’t care for certain movies based on their work. Stephen King was famously critical of the 1980 adaptation of The Shining, for example. However, Adeyemi alleges in a new TikTok video that this goes beyond her not liking the movie, and claims that there’s something more insidious going on here. This follows a previous (since-deleted) video in which the author said she was “officially separating [her] name” from the film. It also included screenshots of a text message she’d allegedly sent to Stenberg in 2025, telling the actor, “do not ever use my name in an interview or video again.”
Adeyemi told concerned fans that she doesn’t mind if they go to see the film, but that she was being “hurt and attacked behind the scenes,” and wanted to separate herself from the project.
Then on July 29, Adeyemi posted a new video which she hopes will be her last word on the subject, in which she says that while people at the “highest level” of the project were made aware of whatever happened behind the scenes, nothing was done about it.
In the video, she mentions “severe somatic pain” and panic attacks she’s suffered as a result of the strife, and described the process of getting the film made as “the worst thing [she’s] ever had to live through.” She asks fans to understand that she never wants to hear about the movie again, and asserts that she’s trying to move on.
Fans in the comments are critical of Adeyemi’s vagueness in the video, but it’s also unclear how much she actually can say, as naming people or events could possibly lead to legal or personal trouble. When the film’s cast was first announced, the Children of Blood and Bone adaptation was accused of colorism, specifically concerning the casting of Stenberg, though the Hate U Give actor claims that Adeyemi wanted her in the role and defended the casting. How we got from that to Adeyemi telling Stenberg not to contact her and seemingly blocking her number isn’t completely clear at this point, but the author seems to be signaling to fans that she doesn’t want to be asked about it while promoting her upcoming book The Siren, which is coming out on September 26.