Ryan Murphy Earns A Bad Reputation After Threatening to Sue WGA Strike Captain

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, which began on May 2, has recently sparked further off-screen drama, as director Ryan Murphy reportedly threatened to sue Warren Leight, the former East Coast strike captain and Strike Rules Compliance Committee member.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the situation began on June 21, when Leight, a playwright who was previously the showrunner of Law and Order: SVU, tweeted that members of the crew of Murphy’s American Horror Story had told him they would be “black-balled in Murphy-land” unless they crossed the picket line.

A spokesperson for Murphy denied the allegations, deeming the tweet “absolute nonsense” and “categorically false,” and sent a letter to the WGA, causing Leight to delete his tweet and issue an apology via Twitter on June 27, where he retracted his claims, which he said he “made the mistake of not verifying.”

The East Coast officers met with Leight and afterwards sent a memo to the region’s strike captains, which outlined the decision for Leight to step down from “official duties related to the strike.” Part of the memo read, “Losing Warren as a strike captain is the last thing any of us wanted, but he understood that his actions on this particular issue exposed the Guild to potential liability, especially as co-chair of the very committee investigating Murphy,” per THR.

The memo also said Leight’s initial tweet calling out Murphy was “in direct contradiction with instructions he had received multiple times from WGAE and WGAW leadership and staff about his use of social media.

“Our foe in this fight is not other members, it is the AMPTP (Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers). If we turn on each other, the AMPTP wins,” the memo continued.

While Murphy may technically be in the clear for now, those on strike have been directed to send in leads on his work, noting that they “need evidence of writing post-strike.” There has been continued picketing outside of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, where the series appears to be continuing production, per Deadline.

Three out of the four scripted TV shows (the fourth being Power Book II: Ghost under Lionsgate and Starz) still in production on the East Coast are under Murphy’s direction: American Horror Story, American Sports Story and American Horror Stories.

However, the scripts on his shows are reported to have been written prior to the strike, and his role as director or producer is not in violation of strike protocol and does not influence his position as a member of WGA West. THR reported that sources have shared conflicting information surrounding Murphy’s whereabouts, with some spotting him in New York City “twice last week,” while others “close to Murphy say he has not been in New York for the past month.”

One East Coast captain shared with THR, “[Murphy] is following the letter of the law and going to set as a producer/showrunner/director and says he’s not doing writing — and no guild can convict somebody of conjecture. A million of us would love to see it, but there’s no proof that he’s scabbing; he’s doing scripts that were done before strike started.”