December 5, 2017
by Colleen McGregor
Netflix has announced that it has fired actor Danny Masterson from its comedy TV series “The Ranch,” after four women have come forward with claims that Masterson raped them in the early 2000s, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “The Ranch,” which premiered in 2016, is set to begin airing the second half of its second season on December 15, 2017. The show is about a dysfunctional family that owns a ranch in Colorado. The cast includes Ashton Kutcher, Debra Winger and Sam Elliott.
Masterson is best known for co-starring with Kutcher in the sitcom “That ’70s Show,” which was on the air from 1998 to 2006. In the U.S., “That ’70s Show” aired on Fox. Masterson has denied all the rape allegations, and issued a statement saying that he was “disappointed” in Netflix’s decision to fire him from “The Ranch.”
Netflix’s firing of Masterson comes a little over a month after the streaming network did the same thing to “House of Cards” star/executive producer Kevin Spacey after numerous men (including “House of Cards” employees) came forward in October 2017 to claim that Spacey sexually harassed or sexually assaulted them. Spacey allegedly committed sexual harassment against males over several decades, according to published reports. Spacey issued a public apology to actor Anthony Rapp, who claimed in an October 2017 article published by BuzzFeed that Spacey tried to have sex with him in 1986, when Rapp was 14 and Spacey was 26. Spacey has not publicly commented on the other allegations, but said that he is taking time off from his career to seek treatment. Spacey has since been removed from the Columbia Pictures drama “All the Money in the World” and replaced by Christopher Plummer.
In late 2017, other actors who have lost TV shows, movies or other business deals after being accused of sexual misconduct include Louis C.K., Ed Westwick, Jeremy Piven and Jeffrey Tambor. Prominent TV journalists Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Mark Halperin have also had disgraceful exits from their jobs after numerous women accused them of sexual harassment going back several years. An even larger number of high-ranking executives who work behind the scenes at various entertainment and media companies have been fired, placed on leave or have resigned in late 2017 after being accused of sexual misconduct by several people. The companies with these major shake-ups include Amazon Studios, DC Comics, Def Jam, National Public Radio, Nickelodeon, Pixar, Rush Communications, Vox Media, Warner Bros. Television and The Weinstein Company.
Although people being fired for sexual misconduct is nothing new, this unprecedented tidal wave of accusations and scandalous ousters in the entertainment industry seems to have been triggered by entertainment mogul Harvey Weinstein’s massive fall from grace in early October 2017, when numerous women went public with stories that he sexually harassed or sexually assaulted them. As of this writing, more than 60 women have come forward with sexual misconduct stories about Weinstein, with the stories spanning various years over several decades, going as far back as the 1970s.