Actor Seyi Omooba loses appeal over Color Purple sacking

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Seyi Omooba in a concert version of The Color Purple in 2017. Photo: Scott Rylander

Actor Seyi Omooba has lost her employment appeal tribunal, with a judge determining an earlier ruling had "permissibly found" her Christian beliefs were not the reason for her firing from The Color Purple.

Omooba’s appeal also failed to overturn the original tribunal’s instruction that she pay approximately £315,000 in legal costs to Leicester Theatre Trust – the name under which Leicester’s Curve Theatre operates – and Michael Garrett Associates.

Justice Eady, president of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, had been deliberating over whether the findings of a 2021 tribunal were correct in dismissing Christian performer Omooba’s claims for religious discrimination, harassment and breach of contract.

Omooba lost her role as Celie in Curve’s 2019 production of The Color Purple, as well as her acting representation, following the resurfacing of an anti-gay social media post. Writing on Facebook in 2014, the then-20-year-old had stated: "I do not believe you can be born gay, and [I] do not believe homosexuality is right."

Three years ago, a tribunal had determined she was dismissed not on the grounds of her religious beliefs, but rather due to the artistic, managerial and commercial consequences of her continued association with the production and her acting representation.

Furthermore, the tribunal uncovered that Omooba had a "red line" on playing LGBT+ roles, which could have prevented her from eventually taking part in the show due to its lesbian interpretation of the 1982 Alice Walker novel – a scenario that would therefore have impacted the production financially.
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In the findings of the three-day appeal, held at the Rolls Building on Fetter Lane in London in December, Eady said the tribunal had not "fallen into the error of confusing reason and motive", and was right to decide that "while the claimant’s belief formed part of the context, it was not a reason for either her dismissal by the theatre or the termination of her agency contract".

Eady additionally found that the tribunal had not failed to "have regard to the impact on the claimant of the social media storm" prompted by her resurfaced Facebook post and subsequent dismissal, but rather found that the respondents had neither caused nor contributed to the outcry.

This is despite one of Omooba’s legal representatives, Niazi Fetto KC, arguing at the appeal that the actor had deserved a statement from her employers reflecting tolerance for her right to express her Christian beliefs, after he claimed she’d been sent deaths threats online.

The judge wrote that the tribunal was right to dismiss Omooba’s breach of contract claim against Leicester Theatre Trust, writing that the actor "had been offered the full contract fee, so there was no pecuniary loss".

Eady continued: "Moreover, as the claimant knew she would not play a lesbian character, but had not raised this with the theatre, or sought to inform herself as to the requirements of the role of Celie, she was in repudiatory breach of her express obligations, and of the implied term of trust and confidence."

She noted that despite Omooba being offered the full contract sum, she had chosen not to invoice for it and instead had brought a claim for the same amount – and said the tribunal "was entitled to distinguish this from the proper pursuit of litigation on a point of principle".

Eady also decided that the tribunal’s decision to take into account Omooba’s legal backers – the Christian Legal Centre – and its ability to pay the entirety of Leicester Theatres and Michael Garrett Associates’ costs was justified, saying the tribunal had "permissibly taken into account the resources of those who had supported the litigation for their own purposes".