TV Star Says She’s Alive and Preparing Tell-All Interview

Despite conflicting reports over the past few 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 on her channel. “Interview loading.” She also appeared to be mic’d up and have her makeup done, suggesting a possible tell-all.

On Instagram, the same clip appears in a carousel subtitles“I heard you were looking for me, what now? #dumbanddumber.”

Banks’ family filed a missing persons report on November 8 after she abruptly left her Los Angeles apartment, leaving most of her belongings and her dog behind.

Only her laptop and phone were missing, but at the same time Banks – who has also appeared in Blue Blood and Gossip Girl– didn’t answer texts or calls.

For her cousin, Danielle-Tori Singh, the sudden silence raised “red flags and alarm bells,” she said ABC 7 Eyewitness News. “She doesn’t go more than 48 hours without talking to me or her mom.”

Singh and other family members pointed to Banks’ husband of a year and suggested his lack of compliance in the search for Banks was suspicious. According to The New York Posthe told them she “didn’t want to be found.”

On Monday, police found a woman they said was Banks in Texas. On Banks’ Instagram account, a story confirmed that she was “okay” and “free at last” after running away to be baptized by a revivalist.

“For decades, my family has been my spiritual, physical and emotional guardian, giving me no authority over my personality,” she reportedly wrote. “I wasn’t allowed to make any decisions in life in any way without their approval.”

Even after police allegedly found Banks, Singh and other family members remained skeptical. The woman in Texas was a “fraud,” Singh believed.

“We have told them this is not Chanel,” Singh claimed in his 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, a twist. “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 had set up for the search would be returned, she said.

“What is made in the dark always comes out,” read another of Singh’s stories. “Everything makes sense now. See you all nice and early for the GRAND FINALE of this SHIT SHOW.”

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