Issa Rae tried to help her 5-year-old nephew win a popcorn fundraiser and it went very, very wrong

Issa Rae is recalling the time she very nearly made her young nephew lose his school fundraiser.

The Barbie actress revealed that her sister had enlisted her to help the 5-year-old in a popcorn-selling competition but that things went terribly wrong.

"My sister hits me up and is like, 'Oh, they're selling popcorn at the school. The kids are competing with each other, and I just really want him to win,'" Rae told Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday's episode of The Tonight Show. "My sister doesn't ask for anything, so I'm like, 'Yeah, bet.'"

The Insecure creator and star turned down her sister's request to tell her friends and her company's employees about the fundraiser because she didn't want anyone to feel "obligated," deciding instead to "pick up the slack" by purchasing "a bunch of popcorn to get him to No. 1."

The maize race quickly became a family affair. "My older brother is obsessing over the game, too, and he's targeting this one kid who's actually in first place," Rae said.

When Fallon interrupted to confirm that this was a 4-year-old competitor, Rae replied, "Literally 4 years old! I'll call him, like, Zulu or something. [My brother's] like, 'Zulu's so smug. He thinks he's gonna take this first-place prize,' and I'm like, 'Uh, guys, they're kids, let's chill.' But I'm getting in this competitive spirit too."

At that point, she was prepared to win the contest for her nephew by any means necessary. "He gets to No. 1 and then, at the deadline, it's 4:50 and I'm like, 'I know one of these parents, they're going to try and get their kid up,'" Rae said. "So, at 4:59, on the dot, I'm going to just boost [her nephew's profits] a little bit… I set it all up, I put a little extra money on there, and I hit the purchase button right at 4:59:59. And then I realized… I gave it to Zulu."

"And Zulu was in first place!" she exclaimed as the audience let out a loud collective gasp. "The family group chat is going crazy. They're just like, 'How could this happen? Parents are so greedy! People take this too seriously!' And I'm dead silent."

Meanwhile, Rae frantically got on the phone with her bank. "I was calling American Express like, 'Please, can we cancel? This is fraud!'" she said. "And so it wasn't until the next day where they were like, 'Oh, you can cancel it' that I decided… He got second place. Sorry to Zulu. He dropped down in the numbers."

After a pause, Fallon asked, "Wait, so Zulu ended up not [becoming] the champion?"

"Well, because I put him over the edge!" Rae said, trying to defend her actions. "I wasn't about to do my nephew like that! Technically my nephew won fair and square."

"He did not win fair and square!" an outraged Fallon replied. "This is a terrible lesson to teach your nephew!"

As it turns out, her nephew wouldn't have minded if he placed first, second, or last. "You know what's crazy? He didn't even care. My sister was like, 'You got second place!' And he was like, 'Oh, okay,'" Rae said. "[He] had no concern."

Watch Rae discuss her popcorn snafu in the clip above.

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