9 Times Actors Were Fired From A Role Because Of Their Outrageous Scandals

Note: This post has mentions of sexual assault. 

1.Columbus Short played Harrison Wright in the first three seasons of Scandal. He exited the show in 2014 amid domestic abuse claims from his now-former wife.

Columbus sitting and wearing a suit and tie
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In 2014, Short was hit with a restraining order from his wife after she claimed he threatened her life during a fight at their home. He was also charged with misdemeanor spousal battery. He later revealed that he was doing cocaine and drinking alcohol in excess during this time in his life.

Close-up of Columbus in a suit and tie
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2.In the sixth season of Empire, Jussie Smollett was written out of the show after an alleged attack on him, which was first investigated as a possible hate crime before being dismissed as a hoax.

Close-up of Jussie standing in a doorway
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In January 2019, Smollett reported to police that he'd been attacked by two masked men in Chicago in a possible racist and anti-gay hate crime.

Close-up of Jussie at a media event
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Smollett claimed he was attacked by two men who threw a chemical at him, put a rope around his neck, called him anti-gay slurs, and referenced President Donald Trump's "MAGA" slogan. After a police investigation, Smollett was accused of paying two acquaintances to stage this attack.

Close-up of Jussie outside in a coat and scarf and wearing a mask and arm in arm with other people
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Amid these legal troubles, Smollett's character was written out of the show in the first episode of the last season.

Close-up of Jussie in a scene from Empire
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3.After three seasons playing Dr. Preston Burke on Grey's Anatomy, Isaiah Washington was fired in 2007 after using an anti-gay slur aimed at T.R. Knight before he'd publicly come out.

Close-up of Isaiah as Dr Burke
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In the book How to Save a Life: The Inside Story of Grey's Anatomy by Lynette Rice, Grey's writer Mark Wilding recalled that Patrick Dempsey had shown up late to set, and Washington felt disrespected because he and the crew had been waiting.

Patrick and Isaiah smiling
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Fellow Grey's Anatomy writer Harry Werksman said that Washington went after Dempsey, pushed him up against the wall, and said, 'You can't talk to me the way you talk to that little f----- T.R.'"

Isaiah and TR Knighit in a scene from the show
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Washington's last appearance on Grey’s as a series regular was in the Season 3 finale. He later returned for one episode in Season 10.

Isaiah as Dr Burke
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4.In 2018, the Roseanne reboot was canceled by ABC a few hours after Roseanne Barr, the show’s star and co-creator, posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, an African American woman who was a senior adviser to Barack Obama throughout his presidency.

Roseanne in a bathrobe
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She later apologized, but ABC quickly announced the cancellation of the reboot.

Close-up of Roseanne sitting at a microphone
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In announcing the show’s cancellation, ABC entertainment president Channing Dungey released a statement saying that “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.”

Roseanne on the red carpet smiling and waving
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5.From 2003 to 2011, Charlie Sheen portrayed Charlie Harper in Two and a Half Men. He was fired after making a series of negative statements about Chuck Lorre, the show’s creator.

Close-up of Charlie on the show
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In 2011, Sheen went on The Alex Jones Show and made negative comments about Lorre. Sheen said he was told that if he went on an “attack,” execs would cancel the show. Sheen continually referred to the Lorre as “Chaim Levine” (Lorre’s birth name is Charles Levine).

Close-up of Charlie on the show
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After those comments, CBS and Warner Bros. announced they were shutting down production of Two and a Half Men for the rest of the season. In response, Sheen wrote a letter to TMZ in which he referred to Lorre as a "little maggot." Afterward, Sheen was fired from the show.

A still from the show with Charlie and Jon Cryer

6.In 2021, The Mandalorian actor Gina Carano was let go from the show after her problematic posts on social media.

Close-up of Gina smiling at a media event
Jean Baptiste Lacroix / Getty Images

In 2021, Carano posted a photo to social media comparing being a Republican to being a Jew during the Holocaust. Fans then searched for more problematic posts from her past and found some in which she condemned wearing face masks and claimed voter fraud in the 2020 election.

Close-up of Gina smiling at a media event
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She was then asked not to return to The Mandalorian, and the plans for her character to have her own show were discarded.

Close-up of Gina smiling at a media event
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A representative for Lucasfilm said in a statement, "Her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable."

Close-up of Gina smiling at a media event
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7.In 2020, Lori Loughlin was convicted of conspiracy to commit fraud and served two months in jail for her role in the 2019 admissions scandal.

Close-up of Lori walking and wearing a pantsuit
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The admissions scandal was where wealthy parents paid bribes to get their children accepted into prestigious universities. After Loughlin was accused, she did not return to Fuller House.

Close-up of Lori smiling at someone
Netflix

8.In 2021, Armie Hammer was fired from just about every one of his upcoming films and shows that he was meant to star in once it became public that he had sexual assault allegations against him and had allegedly sent messages in which he referred to himself as a cannibal. The projects he lost include Billion Dollar Spy, Shotgun Wedding, and the TV series The Offer.

Close-up of Armie at a media event wearing a suit
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He left Hollywood and wasn't seen in public until he was discovered in 2022 seemingly selling timeshares in the Cayman Islands.

Close-up of Armie in a T-shirt by a car
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9.And finally, Hartley Sawyer was fired from The Flash in 2020 after his old racist, misogynistic, and anti-LGBTQ tweets became public on social media.

Hartley in a suit and tie on the show
The CW

One tweet read, per the Hollywood Reporter, “The only thing keeping me from doing mildly racist tweets is the knowledge that Al Sharpton would never stop complaining about me.”

Close-up of Hartley at a media event wearing a T-shirt
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After these posts resurfaced,The Flash producers announced he would not appear in the seventh season of the CW show.

Close-up of Hartley at a media event in a suit and tie with a verdant background
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Who are some other actors who lost roles because of their scandals? Let us know in the comments.