With the quiet finale of VH1’s disastrous reality show, Sorority Sisters, came the permanent expulsion of five Delta Sigma Theta members who were stars of the show.
Last Tuesday (coinciding with Delta’s Founders Day), Lydia Mitchell, Priyanka Banks, MeToya Monroe, Adrene Ashford and Shanna McCormick received word that they were booted from the Divine 9 sorority. The expulsion came just three days before VH1 underwhelmingly aired the final three episodes and completely wiped the doomed show from its website, leaving not a single trace. Two members of Alpha Kappa Alpha who appeared on the show were suspended last month until 2016.
When the show aired last month, it received almost immediate backlash from the Greek community, who felt that it was exploiting Divine 9 organizations by painting them in a negative light. Though ratings were high, advertisers began pulling out once protestors threatened to boycott their products.
“I didn’t know the boycott could be so bad that people would leave,” Banks told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who added that she had received death threats from offended sorors. “They use their power for the pettiest things. People are out there getting killed and you targeting us? Why you not using your power for that?”
Banks, who said she was originally casted by a Diving 9 member, was very disappointed in how the sorority and Greeks in general had expressed their feelings toward the show. She pointed out that cast members never drank in their letters, and they never fought. They still did community service, but she said if the first episode was about that, then, “nobody would have watched it.” She said that she received word of the explusion via the Internet rather than by an official letter from Delta Sigma Theta.
However, Banks said that she won’t let her explusion stop her from achieving her goals of designing a plus-sized shoe line (she claims she has garnered a rather large following of fans since the show premiered). She said that she learned something about how cruel people can be, but she’ll use her past experiences to grow.
“At the end of the day, you can’t take away my experiences as a Delta,” she said. “This piece of paper means nothing to me. You make those letters, they don’t make you. I am going to keep my paraphernalia. Once a Delta, always a Delta. People are going to always know Priyanka is a Delta.”