‘Silicon Valley’ Actress Says TJ Miller Was a ‘Bully and Petulant Brat’ on Set
“Silicon Valley” actress Alice Wetterlund is speaking out about her experience working on the show and with the sitcom’s former star TJ Miller.
“TJ Miller was a bully and petulant brat and pretty much everyone who had any power on that (almost all male) set, including the male cast members, enabled him and were complicit in his unprofessionalism,” Wetterlund, who played the role of Carla on Seasons 2 and 3, said on Twitter Tuesday night. “They can f— off forever.”
“I’m pretty open about this, and I don’t know if other women on the show had a different experience than me, but it was kind of a nightmare,” she added.
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Wetterlund’s comments come after Miller left the show after Season 4. In a statement last May, HBO said the exit was mutual, though reports of bad behavior by Miller later surfaced.
“The producers of Silicon Valley and T.J. Miller have mutually agreed that T.J. will not return for season 5,” the network said at the time. Miller told TheWrap that he left because it felt like the right time for his character to be written out of the story.
“The finale ends as a cliffhanger of whether anyone would ever see Erlich again, and to me, when I read it, I started laughing to myself, thinking, ‘My God, this is the perfect way to say: No, no one ever saw Erlich again — that was it.’ And it was just so funny and so real and so true,” he said.
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In a feature with the Hollywood Reporter in March, the cast opened up about Miller’s behavior on set, saying that it seemed like he didn’t want to be there and would fall asleep on set. One insider quoted in the article said Miller would get “explosive.”
“It just wasn’t working,” co-creator Mike Judge told THR in that interview.
Wetterlund’s tweets echo the behavior described in that feature.
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In response to a fan asking why she stayed on in a bad environment, Wetterlund said “Not a dumb question. One, I needed the job, two, it was my first recurring role and I had no idea it wasn’t always toxic and weird. Now I know!”
HBO said in a statement Wednesday that it was “the first time” the cable channel had heard Alice Wetterlund’s complaints, adding, “We are disappointed to learn of her concerns. HBO and the producers have always taken very seriously our responsibility to create a welcoming and congenial environment for everyone who works on the show.”
A rep for TJ Miller did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
See Wetterlund’s tweets below.
Thank you! I hope to not ruin it for you, but TJ Miller was a bully and petulant brat and pretty much everyone who had any power on that (almost all male) set, including the male cast members, enabled him and were complicit in his unprofessionalism. They can fuck off forever. https://t.co/YxGHiSYMrJ
— Alice Wetterlund (@alicewetterlund) July 18, 2018
I’m pretty open about this, and I don’t know if other women on the show had a different experience than me, but it was kind of a nightmare.
— Alice Wetterlund (@alicewetterlund) July 18, 2018
Not a dumb question. One, I needed the job, two, it was my first recurring role and I had no idea it wasn’t always toxic and weird. Now I know!
— Alice Wetterlund (@alicewetterlund) July 18, 2018
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