Netflix has fired Danny Masterson from The Ranch after he was accused of rape by four women.
“As a result of ongoing discussions, Netflix and the producers have written Danny Masterson out of The Ranch. [Monday] was his last day on the show, and production will resume in early 2018 without him,” a spokesperson for the streaming company said in a statement to Us Weekly on Tuesday, December 5.
Masterson, 41, will still appear in the second half of season 2, which premieres on Friday, December 15, as he already filmed that set of episodes. It is unclear how his character, Jameson “Rooster” Bennett, will be written out of the comedy series, which stars his former That ’70s Show costar Ashton Kutcher. The fate of Masterson’s executive producer credit on the show is also unresolved.
The Los Angeles Police Department has been investigating sexual assault allegations against the actor since March. Four women claimed Masterson raped them in the early 2000s. At least three of the women were Scientologists and said they reported the alleged assaults to the Church of Scientology at the time. Masterson denied the allegations in a statement in March, calling them “false.”
HuffPost reported on Monday, December 4, that Netflix executive Andy Yeatman told one of Masterson’s alleged victims that the company does not believe any of the actor’s accusers. Netflix confirmed the report in a statement to HuffPost, calling Yeatman’s comments “careless [and] uninformed.”
The news of Masterson’s firing from The Ranch comes one day after Netflix announced it will resume production in 2018 on the sixth and final season of House of Cards. Kevin Spacey, the star of the political drama, was removed from the cast in October after multiple sexual misconduct allegations.
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