Michaela Coel

Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson (born 1 October 1987), known professionally as Michaela Coel, is a British screenwriter and actress. She is best known for creating and starring in the E4 sitcom Chewing Gum (2015–2017), for which she won the BAFTA Award for Best Female Comedy Performance; and the BBC One/HBO comedy-drama series I May Destroy You (2020) for which she won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress in 2021. For her work on I May Destroy You, Coel was the first Black woman to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or Dramatic Special at the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards. Coel is also known for her work in other Netflix productions, including guest-starring in the series Black Mirror (2016–2017), starring as Kate Ashby in the series Black Earth Rising (2018) and as Simone in the film Been So Long (2018). Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson was born in East London. Her parents are Ghanaian. She and her sister were raised by their mother in East London, primarily Hackney and Tower Hamlets, . She attended Catholic schools in East London, and has said that, during primary school, she bullied other pupils, claiming it was caused by her isolation as the only black pupil in her age cohort. The isolation did not continue into her secondary education at a comprehensive school.