Camilla Marks-Whiteman, Empire

Camilla Marks-Whiteman (Naomi Campbell)

Camilla was most notable for the way that she was killed off in season 2 of musical drama series Empire. In season 1, when she was a regular character, she was in a relationship with the much younger Hakeem Lyon, until 1×10 “Sins of the Father”, at which point Hakeem’s father Lucious bribed her to leave and return to England. While she didn’t take the money, she was still forced to leave New York and return back to London.

She came back in season 2 episode 10 “Et tu, Brute?”, married to Mimi Whiteman. Camilla was presented as a manipulative, lying, scheming bisexual character, although “bisexual” was never used and was rarely brought up. She used her relationship with her wife, Mimi, for money, waiting for Mimi to die so she could take over the business with her lover, Hakeem. In her final episode, Camilla had sex with her male lover right before she killed Mimi and then committed suicide.

In response to criticism about the storyline, showrunner Ilene Chaiken wrote: “[she] was, if anything, an opportunist, which is quite different from being a lesbian. If anything, the lesbians should wish for a character like Camilla to be killed off since she just preyed on a powerful lesbian in order to fulfill her heterosexual ambitions.” – Variety

Appearances:

• 9 episodes. Regular S1, Recurring S2

Female love interests:

• Mimi 💀 (Marisa Tomei, recurring 5 episodes, wife)

Relationship story arc with a woman: Questionable

Male love interests:

• Hakeem (Bryshere Y. Gray, main cast 31 episodes)

Relationship story arc with a man: Yes

Filter Relationship Arc:

• Male (Regular)

Storyline during sweeps? No

[1] A relationship story arc is defined as explicit, developed on screen, and lasting more than 3 episodes. It is listed as questionable or subtext if romance is only implied, mentioned instead of shown on screen, part of a dream sequence, or otherwise not explicit for the viewer.
[2] Sweeps episodes air in February, May, July and November, the periods when advertising rates are set. A character is marked as "sweeps" when there is a very limited number of episodes that address their sexuality, all air during sweeps period, and the storyline is otherwise ignore/dropped.