Adeyemi didn’t respond publicly to Stenberg’s post at the time, but some sources believe this is when the tension between the author and the team behind the adaptation was first sparked. Though insiders say Adeyemi had been involved in the casting process and had been supportive and excited by Stenberg’s casting from the get-go, their relationship became strained after Stenberg’s video. Adeyemi would later share on TikTok a screengrab from a February 2025 text chain with Stenberg in which the author speaks harshly to the star: “Do not ever use my name in an interview or video again. Do not text me. Do not call me.”
Adeyemi arrived on set two days after Stenberg’s social media post, according to a source with ties to the movie. She filmed a cameo in which she plays a character present during a training sequence with Mama Agba (Davis), who is mentoring Zélie (Mbedu). But the tension between the author and actor became palpable on set, the source says, and difficult to navigate.
After she returned from filming, Adeyemi continued to speak positively about Stenberg and the project in public. While appearing on an episode of the Quiet Conversations podcast in June 2025, Adeyemi said of Stenberg’s casting, “If you feel brokenhearted by this, I don’t think you’ll feel that way when you’re sitting in the theaters. I promise you this world is beautiful, and we’re all in it.”
Almost a year later, in May 2026, she happily posted on social media on the day the WGA arbitration determined that she and Prince-Bythewood would share cowriting credit on Children of Blood and Bone. “Your favorite writer is now an officially accredited screenwriter…and I feel the culmination of a childhood dream being sailed off to a new sea,” she wrote.
On Hollywood productions, screenwriting credits aren’t bestowed by the team making the movie. Instead, they’re decided by the WGA through an arbitration process in which a committee of anonymous WGA members reads all the drafts of a screenplay, then determines who they believe deserves onscreen credit. That credit isn’t just a point of pride: It also usually correlates to a larger contractual bonus and residuals. One source points out that it’s very difficult for a director to get a screenwriting credit on a feature film unless it’s very evident that the director did significant work on the script. “The relationship management that Gina has done—Gina’s a saint basically,” says one individual involved with the film. “That’s who I feel worst for in all of this: Gina, because she’s done so much.” (Prince-Bythewood declined to comment to Vanity Fair.)
Despite the outward positivity, Adeyemi had privately told those involved with the film that she would be distancing herself from the adaptation, according to the source with ties to the movie. Things didn’t spill into public view until July 4 of this year, when Adeyemi posted a TikTok responding to a fan who had asked why she wasn’t talking more about the movie. It included the screengrab of her texts with Stenberg, along with screengrabs of her speaking to other fans (which she calls “Tominators”) about the topic. “I have not seen the film, and I will not watch it,” Adeyemi wrote. “It’s been painful holding this back from you all.” In one screengrab, she tells a fan that she doesn’t mind if they still go to see the movie when it comes out in January 2027. “I wrote this for us. i fought for us. i’m just laying down my sword and officially separating my name because i can’t keep being hurt and attacked behind the scenes.” (Reps for Paramount, Temple Hill, Stenberg, and Adeyemi declined to comment to Vanity Fair.)
