A day after Paramount released the first trailer for the film adaptation of Children of Blood and Bone — set to the sound of Beyoncé’s “Energy”, author Tomi Adeyemi posted a five-minute video on Threads that complicated what should have been a straightforward marketing moment. Rather than celebrating the trailer, Adeyemi used the video to allege that she has spent roughly a year and a half being “antagonized behind the scenes” by people involved in the production, at what she described as its highest levels, without any resolution. She was careful about the boundaries of what she’d disclose: not what she endured writing the YA trilogy, and not everything she suffered making the adaptation happen, only what came after she left the set.

Adeyemi said she left the set of her own film “hyperventilating and sobbing,” in front of what she called many witnesses, and that she returned to the US afterward with severe somatic pain and repeated panic attacks, bad enough, she said, that she made peace with never being able to watch the finished film. She framed her decision to speak now as reluctant rather than strategic, noting that staying silent had started to feel worse than the discomfort of going public, especially with the film’s marketing campaign now underway and a book event of her own approaching.

Adeyemi, who wrote the bestselling 2018 novel and co-wrote the screenplay for its adaptation, stopped short of naming names or detailing specific incidents. She didn’t address prior online speculation linking tension on set to her co-star Amandla Stenberg, who plays Princess Amari, and representatives for Adeyemi, Paramount, and director Gina Prince-Bythewood have not commented publicly on her allegations. What she did make clear is her intent to disengage entirely going forward: “I never want to hear about this project again,” she said, adding that she has nothing further to say about the people behind it and is trying to move on, even acknowledging that posting the video itself might make things worse rather than better.

Children of Blood and Bone, the fantasy debut that turned Adeyemi into one of YA’s biggest breakout names, is due in theaters in January 2027. For now, her video leaves more questions open than it answers: about what actually happened on set, about what she means by “antagonized,” and about how a production can move forward promotionally while its own author says the experience of making it was the worst thing she has ever lived through.

If you are wondering what led to this point, we did a thorough walk through of this story here.