Angelica Ross Alleges Racism, Transphobia on Ryan Murphy Productions’ Sets
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Angelica Ross, the actress who has appeared in many Ryan Murphy productions including Pose and two seasons of American Horror Story, has expounded on her allegations of the bigotry she said she experienced on set.
On Tuesday, Ross accused Emma Roberts of transphobia on the AHS set in an Instagram Live broadcast. In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Ross described a toxic workplace and disappointment in Murphy. “I thought that Ryan Murphy was going to be my champion,” she said. “I thought he understood.”
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After Pose, she said she felt like Murphy’s team tried low-balling her on the salary for American Horror Story: 1984. They offered $28,000 an episode when she felt she deserved $50,000. She pushed back. “They did come back and did give me more money,” she said. “It wasn’t $50,000 an episode, but it was a significant bump.” But on set, she felt uncomfortable. “I definitely was witnessing a lot of white men on set in kind of a white-male dominated space,” she said.
A rep for Ryan Murphy did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
Nevertheless, she felt Emma Roberts and Billie Lourd were able to “make moves.” She likened the scene on the set to something like Mean Girls. “I see Emma talking to the director, John, about something that he wants to do,” Ross said. “He’s trying to get Emma to do something, and she’s not complying. And she says to him, ‘What are you going to do about it, John? You’re going to cry about it? Waaah. John’s not getting his way.'”
Regarding Roberts, Ross further explained the situation that led up to it, in which Roberts allegedly misgendered Ross. After the two actresses had gotten makeup to age them. “I’m like, ‘Oh, you look rested,'” Ross recalled. “And she goes, ‘John, [the director] — Angelica’s being mean!’ And he goes, ‘OK, ladies …’ And she goes, ‘Don’t you mean … lady?'”
Roberts later called to apologize. “It was a bumpy conversation,” Ross said. “She apologized and she said, ‘I hate that you walked away from our experience together feeling like that. I see in hindsight what I did and how stupid that was. I’m an ally.’ I was like, ‘No, you’re not. You can’t call yourself an ally. [Allyship] is an action. You need to be real with me in this conversation. I’m being real with you. You were being messy.’ She said, ‘I hope that we can go move forward and fix this. I see you out there doing such great work out there.’
“And I said, ‘Oh, so you see me?'” Ross continued. “‘You see me talking about the anti-Blackness? Are you using your platform to amplify the work that I’m doing? No, you haven’t. So what kind of ally are you?’ She was like, ‘Well, OK. There’s more to be said there. I would love to support causes that you support.'”
A rep for Emma Roberts did not respond to Rolling Stone’s request for comment.
Ross also described another incident in which she felt unsafe on set, in which a crew member wore racist T-shirts on set bearing phrases like “Build That Wall” and “I Don’t Kneel.”
“This guy had a collection,” Ross said. “I started speaking up about it.” She decided to refuse to get in the car with the man and asked the director to handle it. He told her that it was a freedom of speech issue. Ross sent a tweet saying, “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.”
A producer, Tanase Popa, speaking on behalf of Murphy, asked her to take down the tweet. When Ross said she felt she was being silenced, Murphy allegedly called her cursing and later said he wouldn’t silence her. “He starts off: ‘What’s your fucking problem?! Are you serious?!'” Ross recalled. “He goes, ‘You think that I would fucking silence you after all I’ve done and I’ve been an advocate and done nothing but uplift trans Black women?'” She told him she felt he had a blind spot.
“I said, ‘I feel unsafe on your set,'” Ross recalled. “‘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.'”
She added, “I believed him.”
In part of a lengthy statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Popa said, “[Murphy’s] 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.'”
Ross said she has not heard from Murphy since 2020.
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