Sumith Prasad
In Netflix’s sitcom ‘The Vince Staples Show,’ Anita is Vince Staples’ mother. Anita is highly independent and a bit scary if one is not in her good books. Even her son’s girlfriend Deja experiences the toughness of the woman when they first meet in the third episode of the series. When Vince gets into trouble, she is not the best person to rely on as she doesn’t do anything to get her son released from prison when he gets arrested. Anita is seemingly partially based on the rapper’s real mother Eloise Staples. There are unignorable similarities between the two women!
Anita and Eloise: Vince Staples’ Moms
Vince and his team of writers conceived Anita seemingly drawing inspiration from Eloise. Like Anita, Eloise never bothered to get involved in the predicaments her son created. “My parents were always trying to live. They didn’t really have time to worry about us. You had to take care of yourself. My mom did an amazing job raising all the kids by herself while my dad was incarcerated. My parents weren’t around because they couldn’t be. It wasn’t a, ‘I’m just going to be lazy and not take care of my kids,’ thing. They had to take care of themselves and we had to make do best we could,” Vince told Complex.
Both Anita and Eloise are highly religious. In the series, the former even reminds Deja that she needs Jesus. “My dad used to go to jail. My sister’s dad died when she was a baby so after that my mom tried to get her shit together. You know how black people get, she started being really religious and shit. Just regretting all the shit she had done and she had to do. I don’t care about any of that,” Vince added.
In the third episode, Vince and Anita’s relatives get terrified of the latter when she confronts them. In reality, for the rapper, Eloise was a scary mother. “[…] when I was younger, I was afraid of my mom, ‘cause she was yelling all the time and she was tall and used to dress like a dude. I would cry when she would talk to me. But that was her version of love, and I’ve never been afraid of anyone else,” Vince told Vice. “My mom carried herself like a dude my whole life; she never wanted to come off like she was weak. And she took care of everybody,” he added.
Vince considers Eloise as his principal source of inspiration. “I learned everything from my mom. Everything I learned from my mom helps me just pursue and push forward and become something else. I just see situations she went through, how she learned from them, and how she still pushed forward. She inspires me to be the best person I can be just from seeing what she does,” the rapper told Teen Vogue.
Vanessa Bell Calloway, who plays Edie in NBC’s ‘This Is Us,’ plays Anita in the sitcom. She is also known for her performances in Bounce TV’s ‘Saints & Sinners’ and BET+’s ‘The Black Hamptons.’ Her credits include ‘What’s Love Got to Do with It,’ ‘Boston Public,’ ‘The District,’ ‘Hawthorne,’ and ‘Harriet’ as well.
Read More: Is The Vince Staples Show Based on the Rapper’s Real Life?
