Long before she got famous on Pose — burning up the screen playing ballroom diva Candy Ferocity— she was already an accomplished activist and self-taught computer coder who founded TransTech Summit, which helps trans people find careers in tech. But Ross’ natural talents for acting took her far in Hollywood: After Pose, she transitioned to another Ryan Murphy production at FX, American Horror Story, where she held her own among vets like Emma Roberts and Billie Lourd in the slasher-themed 1984 season of the anthology series. But all was not copacetic, as Ross revealed this week in a flurry of X (formerly known as Twitter) posts and Instagram Live broadcasts.
Providing screengrabs of emails and detailed accounts of conversations, 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
Emma Roberts?
“From what I saw on set and how she talked to the directors and everyone else, my view would be Emma was the boss. She had her trailer outside of the sound studio, not where all the other trailers were. She made sure that everything went through her. She would literally tell them what order we were filming scenes”
Emma Roberts called you to apologize for her behavior on set. 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? 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.”
The truth of the matter is, I know Emma’s got big balls. I’ve seen them on the set, so I’m not surprised that she called me. This girl is no damsel in distress, ever.