Actress and singer Serayah McNeill, known mononymously as Serayah, is opening up about the difficult circumstances she faced before landing her breakout role on the hit television series Empire, revealing she was homeless at the time she was cast.
Speaking on the Let’s Try This Again podcast, Serayah described the moment when she decided to stop living in fear and commit fully to her future.
“When I booked Empire, no one knows, but I was homeless,” she said during the interview.
The revelation surprised the podcast host, who responded with disbelief, prompting Serayah to explain the situation she was facing at the time.
“Yeah. And I’m like working at H&M. I’m just now an adult, you know, 19,” she said in the short clip from the whole show shared on Instagram. “I remember having this conversation with myself, God spirit. I was just like, I’m not doing this anymore. Like I will never worry about these things ever again.”
Serayah said that moment—when she made a firm decision to change her life—became a turning point.
“I was driving. I said it, like I just verbalized it,” she recalled. “I felt it with every fiber of my being.”
Not long afterwards, she received the call that would change her career.
“I didn’t know. I ended up getting that call and we moved to Chicago,” she said, referring to the city where Empire was filmed.
At the time, however, the opportunity was far from guaranteed long-term success.
“That’s why I say moved because I was really only guaranteed three episodes,” Serayah explained. “I was just a guest star.”
Despite the uncertainty, she and her team made the leap:
“So we went to Chicago, but we were literally like, took all of our stuff to check out. Like, well, this is where we’re at now to work in Chicago.”
Serayah said the early days of the role came with modest pay compared with the scale of the opportunity.
“My first check was maybe eight K,” she said. “Then, you know, taxes. So maybe four K.”
Still, that paycheck represented a major step forward after a period of instability.
“I got like our first apartment back in L.A.,” she said, reflecting on what she described as “crazy times.”
Serayah ultimately became widely recognized for her role as Tiana Brown on Empire, the music-industry drama created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong. The series, which starred Taraji P. Henson and Terrence Howard, became one of the most popular television shows during its run.
Her story highlights the often unseen struggles many performers face before achieving success in Hollywood, with Serayah revealing that a personal decision to pursue faith and determination helped set her on a different path.
Reflecting on that defining moment, she described it as the point when everything began to change.
“That was the pivotal moment,” she said. “I said it out loud and I meant it with every fiber of my being.”
