Jay Ellis opens up about his surprise return to ‘Insecure’

Insecure fan favorite Jay Ellis, who plays Issa Rae’s ex Lawrence, popped up in a scene on Sunday’s episode and stunned fans across social media, some of whom had petitioned for his comeback with the #bringbacklawrence hashtag.

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Ellis’ surprise return comes after a petition with more than 12,000 signatures called “Where’s Lawrence” circulated widely calling for his return to the popular series.

“Lawrence was something new for TV. He’s a strong black man who also isn’t afraid to be emotionally vulnerable,” it read. “This mess needs to be cleaned up… it’s time to get loud to bring him back!”

Ellis, opened up to Good Morning America’s Ginger Zeetodayabout the love and some hate he’s received for giving Issa the blues last season.

People are so invested in the TV relationship Ellis’ character has with Issa Rae that he said a woman once slapped him.

“I got slapped in an airport, actually in JFK…” Ellis shared about a fan who hit him. “I was going to buy some Dramamine and one of those towers, spinned it around and it bumped into a woman. I said ‘excuse me’ and she turned around, looked at me, eyes got wide and just, I mean… and she reached back, it was one of those momma slaps…”

As for the fourth season of Insecure, Ellis says he doesn’t know if he’s be a staple on the show.  “We don’t know if Lawrence is back… I’m the last to find out pretty much everything, but we do hope Lawrence is back. I would love to be back. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Lawrence told Vulture that he was surprised his “hive” his die-hard fan base put out a petition for his return.

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“Yeah, somebody put a petition on Care2. Also, they reached out to me about it. They’re really lovely people. They’re actually really, really cool people. If you go back to the finale of episode one and you see the creation of this #LawrenceHive hashtag, which became a big thing from that finale and then obviously carried on through season two,” he said.

“All of a sudden for that character to just disappear and create this void…I mean, I don’t think I ever expected it to grow to what it grew to be, but I hoped people would miss Lawrence. I hoped he would resonate with people and that people related to him enough where they’d be like, “Man, I miss him, I want to see him on TV,” because you don’t get to see a lot of guys like him, especially a lot of black characters of color who are going through all the ups and downs he’s going through – the relationship stuff, the vulnerability. I didn’t expect that it was going to be like…I mean, I saw a video of a dude protesting at a screening Issa did in Harlem,” he said.

Well, the #LawrenceHive can rejoice because their favorite character is back!

Insecure airs Sunday nights on HBO.