Angelica Ross has more to say about her experience working with Ryan Murphy and what happened on the set of American Horror Story.
The 42-year-old actress, who says she is now “leaving Hollywood,” previously accused Ryan of accepting her pitch idea for an upcoming AHS season and then ghosting her, causing her to miss out on a Marvel role as she was under contract with FX.
Angelica also has accused co-star Emma Roberts of making a transphobic comment on set and she just revealed what the actress told her in an apology phone call.
Now, Angelica is opening up about a racist incident that allegedly happened on set and she called out Ryan for how he reacted, though a producer claims the story isn’t accurate.
Keep reading to find out more…
“There was a crew member who was operating my vehicle that I had to drive on camera, so he’s right outside my windshield and every day he was wearing a racist T-shirt,” Angelica told The Hollywood Reporter, adding that Emma Roberts “was aware of the T-shirts.”
She added, “One day it was, ‘BUILD THAT WALL.’ The next day it was white praying hands in front of an American flag, and it said, ‘I DON’T KNEEL.’ Those are the ones I remember. This guy had a collection. I started speaking up about it.”
“I’m seeing this man with these shirts and I’m trying to focus, and when they say action, I just said, ‘It’s cut. I can’t do this anymore.’ I got out of the car, I went into the [production] van, and I said, ‘I’m not coming out of this van until you handle the situation. Either he has to take that shirt off or turn it inside out, but this is not right.’ Hours were passing. We were losing daylight. So folks are panicking,” Angelica said.
She continued, “John, the director, comes into the trailer and he’s just like, ‘Angelica, look — I understand this is a difficult situation. We’ve seen these shirts and it sucks, but it’s a freedom of speech issue and we can’t do anything about it.’ An hour passes, they’re still trying to get me to come out the van. So I then tweet. ‘It’s a shame that I do all this work out in the world on anti-Blackness and racism and have to come to a set and do the same work.’”
Angelica claims that she heard from Ryan Murphy‘s producer just moments after she tweeted.
“No less than maybe 10 seconds, my phone rings. It’s Tanase Popa, one of the producers, and he’s telling me, ‘Ryan Murphy thinks you should take that tweet down. Things are being handled, and he considers us a family and we don’t share things outside the family,’” Angelica said. “I said, ‘What does it mean that it’s being handled? He’s still on set and they’re still asking me to come out of my trailer. So what has been handled?’ And he’s like, ‘I hear you. It’s just that these situations are difficult.’ I said, ‘OK, fine, I’ll take down the tweet. But just so you know, I’m being told that this man wearing these T-shirts has freedom of speech, but I’m the one being told to take down a tweet. I feel like I’m being silenced.’”
Angelica claims that Ryan himself called her “two seconds later” and that she believes “he was probably there for the whole conversation.”
“He starts off not, ‘Are you OK?’ Not, ‘What’s going on?’ He starts off: ‘What’s your f–king problem?! Are you serious?!’ He goes, ‘You think that I would f–king silence you after all I’ve done and I’ve been an advocate and done nothing but uplift trans black women?’” Angelica continued. “And so he is cussing me out. After he finishes. I say, ‘Ryan, that’s not what’s going on here. First of all, the situation has not been handled. The guy is still on set.’ And I told him, I said, ‘I do all this work out here. Ever since I’ve been on Pose, your white actors aren’t clocking in like we’re clocking in. We have to go out there now because Pose is this big show. And you’re saying that Pose is not just entertainment, it’s an act of advocacy. You’re not calculating that you have turned your actors also into advocates.’”
She continued, “I said, ‘I feel unsafe on your set. I feel like I’m just here trying to do a job, and now I got to do a second job of being the adult in the room and handling the situation that you should be handling.’ And he said, ‘You know what? You are right. I’m sorry. I want to be your biggest champion. I understand the work you’re doing, and I want to be your biggest champion.’ I believed him.”
Tanase Popa sent a statement to The Hollywood Reporter in response to Angelica‘s comments.
“Ryan was directing that day on another project. Somebody had told him that Angelica had posted on Twitter and he said, ‘Can you go check with Angelica because she should come to us instead of just going to Twitter?’ I had called Angelica. She put me on speakerphone while she was in the van. Emma Roberts and John Gray were also in the van. My conversation with her was, ‘Hey, I just wanted to check in. Ryan heard that you posted on Twitter. I spoke with John Gray. He’s in the process of dealing with it with HR and labor relations. But if something happens, please come to us. I’m right by Ryan when he’s directing. I can get him easily, but it’s better to come to us. We can actually implement a solution than going to Twitter and just broadcasting this.’
“She then said, ‘You are silencing me.’ And I said, ‘I am not silencing. You can post or say whatever you want, but what I’m saying is we should follow the proper protocol so that we can actually implement a solution on set instead of just going to Twitter first.’ She said, ‘OK, fine, I’m going to take down the post, but I feel like I’m being silenced. This is my role as an activist and I’m going to take the post down.’ And I said, ‘OK, I’m going to go back to set and get Ryan to call you back.’ She says he called her within ‘seconds.’ Ryan was in the middle of several takes, and it took about 10 minutes. He then called her, he stepped outside. I was next to him. His assistant Sara Stelwagen was next to him and we did not hear him cuss at her or say, ‘After all I’ve done for you, why would you do this?’ He basically said, ‘I don’t understand why you would go to Twitter instead of coming to us.‘”
Read the full interview at THR.com.