Angelica Ross is opening up about her time on set with Ryan Murphy and that call with Emma Roberts on American Horror Story.
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, the actress details the aftermath of sharing emails and detailed conversations shared on social media.
Ross, 42, says Murphy abruptly stopped communicating with her three years ago, during which no one in his company, Ryan Murphy Productions, would offer her any information about her status within the AHS franchise.
Roberts, meanwhile, could be a bullying presence on set, Ross alleges, once going so far as to misgender her in front of a director. The revelations come ahead of an announcement that Ross is packing up her home in downtown Los Angeles and moving back to her house in Georgia full-time, where she will transition to a career in politics.
When claiming she is ‘leaving Hollywood,’ the star opened up to the outlet claiming, “It’s sort of a “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” situation. I thought that Ryan Murphy was going to be my champion. I thought he understood. He tweeted something about me after season three of Pose: “I really appreciate Angelica for her strength and her bluntness, but also her talent.”
She went on to add, “All the people who are part of all of this know exactly what I’m talking about. They know how I showed up on set. They know that I was moving in my Buddha nature. My hairstylist would even say, “Angel, I can feel the peace radiating off of you.” There would be so much chaos going on because on a Ryan Murphy set, there is sure to be chaos. That’s just something that people know from Glee. We’ve heard about that on American Horror Story, Scream Queens and so on.”
In the interview, the star also claimed that she rejected the inital offer for AHS after starring on Pose.
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Going over to American Horror Story, the truth is I rejected their offer,” Ross stated. “I knew that by killing me off on Pose and then trying to usher me over to American Horror Story: 1984, that [Murphy] was trying to paint a narrative that he is supportive [of championing diversity].
“Going over to American Horror Story, the truth is I rejected their offer. I knew that by killing me off on Pose and then trying to usher me over to American Horror Story: 1984, that [Murphy] was trying to paint a narrative that he is supportive [of championing diversity].”
In addition, the actress noted that she noticed an onslaught of bullying behind the scenes and a large amount of white-male-dominated spaces.
“But somehow folks like Emma Roberts and others — I mean even Billie Lourd, but Billie Lourd I’m cool with — those girls were able to make moves on the set. They were able to open up their mouths and things moved. Sometimes I didn’t know if I was watching a mean girl or if I was just watching a woman standing up for herself.”
Ross alleges that staff members also wore racist t-shirts with phrases like “BUILD THAT WALL” and “I DON’T KNEEL” with ‘white praying hands in front of an American flag.’
The star went on to admit that Murphy was ‘not usually there’ for most of the production as well. Ross even alleges that Emma Roberts was mostly in charge on set as she was listed first on the call sheet. The Hollywood Reporter reached out to co-executive producer Tanase Papa claiming that “Ryan was directing that day on another project.”
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In regards to the apology Roberts gave on misgendering the actress, Angelica Ross admitted it was a ‘bumpy conversation.’
The actress noted, “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.”
