Michaela Coel

Michaela Coel Bio

Michaela Ewuraba Boakye-Collinson, known professionally as Michaela Coel, is a British actress, writer, television director and producer born on 1 October 1987 in London, England. Rising from the poetry and theatre scenes of East London to become one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British television, Coel has built her career on fiercely personal storytelling. She is best known for creating and starring in the E4 sitcom Chewing Gum (2015–2017) and the BBC One and HBO comedy-drama I May Destroy You (2020), both of which earned her major industry awards and widespread critical praise.

Early Life and Background

Michaela Coel was born on 1 October 1987 in East London, England, to Ghanaian parents. She and her sister were raised primarily by their mother in the East London neighbourhoods of Hackney and Tower Hamlets. Coel attended Catholic schools in the area during her primary years, an experience she has described as isolating because she was often the only Black pupil in her year group. This isolation eased when she moved on to a comprehensive school for her secondary education.

Her early exposure to performance came through spoken word and poetry. Coel began performing at poetry open mics in Ealing in 2006 and quickly built a stage presence under the name Michaela The Poet, appearing at venues including Wembley Arena, the Bush Theatre and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in New York. She joined the Talawa Theatre Company summer school programme TYPT in 2009, where she appeared in the production Krunch, directed by Amani Naphtali. During these formative years she also released music, including the 2009 album Fixing Barbie and the 2011 record We’re the Losers, which signalled her growing range as a performing artist.

Path to Celebrity

Coel’s transition toward professional screenwriting and acting began during her university years. From 2007 to 2009, she studied English Literature and Theology at the University of Birmingham before transferring in 2009 to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she became the first Black woman to enrol in five years. At Guildhall, she was awarded the Laurence Olivier Bursary Award, which helped fund her training, and supplemented her studies with the Mark Proulx workshop at Prima del Teatro and a poetry course at Theatre Royal Stratford East led by Kat Francois. She graduated in 2012.

A pivotal moment came when she met director and actor Ché Walker at open mic nights and took his masterclass, an experience that pushed her toward writing for performance. Her graduation project at Guildhall was the one-woman play Chewing Gum Dreams, in which she played a 14-year-old named Tracey. The play premiered at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick in 2012 and was later produced at the Bush Theatre, Royal Theatre Holland, the Royal Exchange Theatre and the National Theatre, where it received strong reviews and established Coel as a major new voice in British theatre.

Michaela Coel Career

Early Career (2013–2015)

Coel’s screen career began in 2013 with an appearance in the Channel 4 drama Top Boy, followed by leading roles at the National Theatre, including the award-nominated production Home and a critically acclaimed staging of Medea. Channel 4 announced in August 2014 that Coel would write and star in a new sitcom called Chewing Gum, inspired by her stage play Chewing Gum Dreams. Short teaser episodes were released under the C4 Comedy Blaps banner in September 2014, and the full series premiered on E4 in October 2015.

The sitcom earned Coel two BAFTA wins in 2016, including Best Female Comedy Performance and Breakthrough Talent, and established her as a singular comedy talent on British television. During this period she also appeared in the BBC One drama London Spy in 2015, expanding her dramatic range.

Breakthrough (2015–2020)

Chewing Gum returned for a second series in January 2017 and continued to draw strong reviews. Coel broadened her profile with memorable guest appearances in the Charlie Brooker anthology series Black Mirror, taking on roles in both the Nosedive and USS Callister episodes, and she also had a small part in the 2017 Star Wars film The Last Jedi. In 2018 she starred as Kate in the BBC Two and Netflix co-production Black Earth Rising and played Simone in the musical-drama Been So Long, written by Ché Walker and released on Netflix to positive reviews.

The defining breakthrough of Coel’s career came with I May Destroy You, which she created, wrote, produced, co-directed and starred in. The series, inspired by her own experience of sexual assault, premiered on BBC One in the United Kingdom and HBO in the United States in June 2020 to widespread critical acclaim. Coel has publicly discussed refusing a $1 million deal from Netflix because the streamer would not grant her ownership of the underlying intellectual property, a decision that cemented her reputation as a principled artist.

Notable Works and Milestones

Across her career, Coel has built a body of work anchored by Chewing Gum, I May Destroy You and her Black Mirror appearances. She was named to Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People list in 2020, recognised as one of the breakout film stars of that year and featured in British Vogue’s influential women list. In 2021 she published her first book, Misfits: a Personal Manifesto, based on her MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh Festival, and in 2022 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Michaela Coel Award Nominations

Michaela Coel has earned a range of major industry nominations across both comedy and drama, recognising her work as a writer, performer and director. While her trophy haul is comparatively small, the depth of recognition from organisations such as BAFTA and the Television Academy reflects the impact of her limited but sharply focused body of work on British and global television.

Michaela Coel Awards Won

Michaela Coel has won three major industry awards for her work in television comedy and drama. Her early wins at the 2016 BAFTA Television Awards celebrated Chewing Gum, while her Primetime Emmy Award win marked a historic milestone for Black women in American television.

Michaela Coel Family

Coel was raised by her Ghanaian mother in East London alongside her sister. Her mother designed the gown she wore to the 2016 British Academy Television Awards, which was made from traditional Kente cloth. Coel’s cousin is the British rapper and author Guvna B, a connection that links her artistic family background to the wider British-Ghanaian creative community.

Personal Life

Like the Tracey character in Chewing Gum, Coel grew up immersed in Pentecostal Christianity and embraced a period of celibacy, though she later stepped away from the faith after attending Guildhall. In August 2018 she publicly disclosed that she had been drugged and sexually assaulted by two unnamed men during the writing of Chewing Gum, an experience that became the foundation for I May Destroy You. Coel has said in interviews that she identifies as aromantic, and as of 2025 she is in a relationship with tech entrepreneur Spencer Hewett, whom she met on the celebrity dating app Raya.