Despite conflicting reports over the past couple of days, actress Chanel Maya Banks insists she is “NOT MISSING,” according to her Instagram bio.
“As you can see, I am alive,” the Gossip Girl actor said in a YouTube video recently posted to her channel. “Interview loading.” She also appeared to be mic’d up and getting her makeup done, suggesting a possible tell-all to come.
On Instagram, the same clip appears in a carousel captioned, “I heard you were looking for me, now what? #dumbanddumber.”
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Banks’ family filed a missing persons report on Nov. 8, after she abruptly vacated her Los Angeles apartment, leaving behind the majority of her belongings and her dog.
Only her laptop and phone were missing, but at the same time, Banks—who has also appeared in Blue Bloods and Gossip Girl—wasn’t answering texts or calls.
For her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, the sudden silence raised “red flags and alarm bells,” she told ABC 7 Eyewitness News. “She doesn’t go more than 48 hours without speaking to me or her mom.”
Singh and other family members pointed the finger at Banks’ husband of one year, suggesting his noncompliance in the search for Banks was suspicious. According to The New York Post, he told them she “did not want to be found.”
On Monday, police located a woman they said was Banks in Texas. On Banks’ Instagram account, a story confirmed that she was “OK” and “finally free,” having run away to be baptized by a revivalist pastor.
“For decades my family has been my spiritual, physical, and emotional warden, giving me zero authority of my personage,” she reportedly wrote. “I was not allowed to make any decisions in life in any way without their approval.”
Even after police reportedly located Banks, Singh and other family members remained skeptical. The woman in Texas was an “imposter,” Singh believed.
“We have told them this is not Chanel,” Singh claimed in her Instagram stories on Thursday. “They didn’t listen to us and closed the case. That’s why @ohhheychanel won’t post a video saying she’s safe because it’s not Chanel.”
But then, on Friday, an about-face. “Chanel has been found,” Singh wrote in another story. “We identified her 3 hours ago, before she posted on YouTube.” Donations made to the GoFundMe she’d set up for the search would be returned, she said.
“What’s done in the dark always comes to light,” read another of Singh’s stories. “Everything makes sense now. See you all bright and early for the GRAND FINALE of this S--- SHOW.”
Watch this space?
