Is Daniel Kaluuya Wrapped Up With a “Spiritual Gangster” That’s Controlling His Life?

How one Hollywood rumor grew the legs to run wild.

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Film stars may come and go, but presently, the talented, enigmatic, handsome, Black Hollywood heartthrob that is Daniel Kaluuya is having his moment. The British actor featured in Jordan Peele’s upcoming thriller, Nope has only been known to American fans for less than ten years, and has already developed a reputation for being the strong and silent type. Never in the tabloids, never stirring the pot.

But you know what they say, if you don’t give the press something to talk about, eventually, they’ll draft something themselves, which has proven to be the case when it comes to the quiet and mysterious Kaluuya. A rumor began to surface a few months ago that claimed the Get Out star was connected to a woman known as “Heir Holiness,” a cult-like character who describes herself as “a spiritual gangster serving a life sentence in a human body.”

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Later identified as 50 year old Vanylla Salimah Mahmoud, friends close to Kaluuya began publicly expressing their concerns about the actor’s connection to the “spiritualist.” The New York Post originally reported that Heir Holiness would at times appear on set with Kaluuya, and later made claims of being the star’s personal manager. Rumors were further fueled as reports came in about Kaluuya firing his agents, assistants, and stylists, all under her advisement.

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This past week, in a profile published by The Hollywood Reporter, Kaluuya briefly addressed the rumors, apparently denying being under the influence of anyone but himself.

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“It showed me that I was in a paradigm of fame,” Kaluuya said about the situation. “An unnamed, unverified source has more credibility than what is actually said and the truth of the situation. Like, ‘Wow, so a bunch of people decided it’s happening, then it’s happened?’ And it’s like, well, that’s not what’s happened.”

While Kaluuya did confirm that he does not have a U.S. agent at the moment, he has retained the same U.K. agents and U.S. managers that he’s had since the beginning of his career.

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When it comes to the chatter around the actor being in a real life “sunken place,” he speaks on the fact that many people don’t believe Black talent is acting when they land a role like the one he held in Get Out.

“They think we’re playing ourselves,” he said.

When asked whether or not he wanted to address the rumors about Heir Holiness directly, Kaluuya declined, saying that doing so only “confirms the perception and the perspective of the situation.”

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“And so you can’t answer it … but you can be seen as difficult in that situation because the thought behind the question doesn’t make sense,” he says. “A lot of these stories are just about journalists being perplexed about things, and then that’s the story. I understand. I just find it odd because everyone’s different.”