Did you know that Octavia Spencer writes books? She writes the Randi Rhodes, Ninja Detective tween series. The second book in the series has just been released, and Octavia was apparently doing a book signing at The Grove in LA last week, only it didn’t go so well. Allegedly. Here’s the thing: I’m willing to make the leap and say it’s perfectly possible that Octavia Spencer was a total diva at a book signing. But I cannot sign off on the level of vitriol being leveled at her in this Daily Mail article, even if they are just quoting from named and unnamed sources. Here’s the Mail’s piece on the situation:

Octavia Spencer shocked and angered hundreds of fans at a recent book signing, acting like an ‘ungrateful b****,’ say eyewitnesses who were so incensed with the actress’s behavior they stormed out and demanded refunds. Spencer was at Barnes & Noble bookstore at The Grove in Los Angeles last week to autograph copies of her children’s book ‘Randi Rhodes Ninja Detective — The Sweetest Heist in History.’ But before the night was over people were dragging their kids out of line, demanding refunds on the books and stormed out of the store in disgust.

‘Octavia was mean, rude and horrible to everyone,’ former Octavia fan, Angel Guzman explained to the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. ‘Initially, there was a Q & A but Octavia acted like she was forced to be there and she took her anger out on all of us, including the kids. Octavia’s answers were short and blunt and there were times she rolled her eyes to the back of her head like she couldn’t believe someone could ask such a stupid question. It quickly became a very uncomfortable situation for all of us. It was clear they just needed to proceed to the autographs because Octavia was not responding well at all to the questions.’

Octavia was scheduled to autograph her books from 7-9 p.m. but she was complaining the moment she arrived about the space they put her in, the ‘tiny glass of water’ she was given, that her feet were hurting so she took a long bathroom break, leaving everyone to wonder if she left or not.

‘Octavia was acting like a diva. She was mad because the event coordinator gave her a small glass of water but she wanted a large liter of ‘good water’ and demanded to know why she was being treated this way,’ Guzman continued. ‘All of this happened in front of everyone who has been standing there for at least an hour, with their restless kids, waiting for her to show up. Octavia didn’t acknowledge the crowd in any way; she just showed up and started to complain. But when the she finally started to sign the books is when things went from bad to worse.’

Ordinarily, celebrities allow their fans to take a picture with them at these book signings, but Octavia said no touching, no coming around the table to take a pic with her and she also refused to have small talk with anyone — just give her the book to sign and keep it moving. And she didn’t even want to ask the customer what was their name, they had to tell the assistant standing nearby their name, she wrote it on a sticky pad and handed it to Octavia, who then signed the book and slid it over to the edge of the table for pickup, like it was a fast food window.

After watching Octavia being abrupt and rude to several people one woman grabbed her 8-year-old and stormed off yelling, ‘This woman is an ungrateful, nasty b****! I’m getting a refund on this stupid book. If she talked to me or my child like that it would get really ugly in here so it’s best we get our money back and go home before something jumps off.’

[From The Daily Mail]

As I said, I’m willing to travel down this path and say that Octavia was maybe having a bad night, or maybe she was tired of being treated like communal property, or hey, maybe she didn’t want people touching her and she wanted to keep the autograph line moving quickly because she wasn’t expecting so many people. But the level of vitriol is… unsettling. You know who else was reportedly a major diva during her book tour? Lea Michele. But we didn’t have eyewitness accounts calling Lea an “ungrateful, nasty bitch.” That’s really over-the-top, right?

Oh, and Octavia responded to this story on her Twitter, writing:

Gotta laugh when ppl would acutally believe that you were rude to a child… at YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK SIGNING.

— octavia spencer (@octaviaspencer) April 6, 2015

Huh.

Photos courtesy of WENN.