Emma Grede’s book tour has been making headlines… to say the least.

Her latest offense according to the internet? Referring to Ami Colé founder Diarrha N’Diaye as “not extraordinary.”

That’s not exactly what she said. But the fuller version is only slightly more forgiving. While on the “She’s So Lucky” podcast with host Les Alfred, promoting her debut book Start With Yourself, Grede explained why she never wrote N’Diaye a check when the opportunity was in front of her. She said she doesn’t back first-time founders unless she sees something “extraordinary” about both the person and the concept. With Ami Colé, she didn’t see it either. 

“To me, I didn’t see that. I was like, ‘It’s okay.’ But I was like, ‘It’s gonna come and go.’ That’s how I felt.”

This is a brand that went from a sketch in a Brooklyn apartment to Sephora shelves in four years, won five Allure Best of Beauty Awards, and built one of the most loyal communities in beauty.  N’Diaye got there because she stood on business for Black women rather than thinking of us like an afterthought. She was creating products centered specifically on melanin-rich skin, at a time when the industry was still treating inclusive shade ranges like a trend rather than a standard.

When N’Diaye announced the brand’s closure in July 2025, the grief online was immediate and genuine. In her statement, she pointed to investor pressure and what she described as a quiet but unmistakable shift in attitude from backers who had been enthusiastic about “betting big on inclusivity” in 2020 and considerably less so a few years later. It said out loud what most founders already know but don’t say publicly.

She passed on Ami Colé as an investment. Then, after the brand closed, Alicia Scott of Range Beauty introduced N’Diaye to Grede, and in November 2025 SKIMS announced that N’Diaye had been appointed Executive Vice President of beauty and fragrance. She apparently wasn’t worth a check but was good enough to run their entire beauty division.

Yeeeeaaaaaa…idk yall. Burn out is real…but work really hard so they can see you and you can be overlooked for the millionth time.But what do I know…?#emmagrede #amicole

Grede addressed that tension directly on the podcast, and she didn’t apologize for it. She called the SKIMS role a “perfect opportunity” for N’Diaye and suggested that working inside a $5 billion company would give her access to the infrastructure, mentorship and resources that founding a company alone couldn’t. Then she went further, saying N’Diaye, “perhaps lacked the business acumen to start a business.” She framed it as something N’Diaye has said herself, which may be true. That’s N’Diaye’s assessment to make about herself, not Grede’s to borrow.

“I hope the community understands it. If they don’t, then, sorry. Not even, sorry. The point of being in business is to make money. It isn’t to service the community.”

She’s not wrong, technically, but perhaps given the platform, and the scrutiny that Black women founders already face, there could have been a bit more nuanced added.

The fact that Grede has built significant cultural capital specifically within Black consumer spaces makes the ‘sorry, not sorry’ framing feel dismissive. It’s also not the first comment from this tour that’s sparked backlash. Her earlier comments about being a Emma Grede Didn’t Think Ami Colé Was ‘Extraordinary Enough’ To Fund. Then She Hired Its Founder To Lead SKIMS Beauty appeared first on Essence.