The team behind Mixed-ish is being sued by an actress who claims the idea for the show is her idea.
Kenya Barris, ABC and Tracee Ellis Ross are among those being sued by actress Hayley Marie Norman, who claims she signed a deal with Big Breakfast to star, executive produce and write a similar series in 2017. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Big Breakfast is the sister company to production/management company Artists First, which includes Barris and Ross in its client roster. Norman and Ross also shared the same manager Brian Dobbins. Norman is suing for breach of confidence, breach of contract, intentional interference with contract and intentional misrepresentation.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Norman claims that Dobbins and Ross helped her develop the series, called Mixed, which she registered with the WGA in 2016 and claims was based on her own personal experiences. The pitch was “a 30-minute sitcom, employing flashbacks, that follows the journey of a mixed-race female protagonist as she grapples with her biracial identity while living in the suburbs surrounded by both sides of her African American and Caucasian families.” Dobbins pitched it to Barris, who was allegedly uninterested in the idea. The idea, the suit alleges, was also pitched to Showtime, HBO, Hulu, Netflix, Starz and Amazon, all of whom passed on the pitch.
Norman claims that in 2019, Ross told Norman to revisit the idea in a few months’ time. But by the following month, mixed-ish was put in development. Norman’s attorney, Michael Plonsker, wrote in the suit that mixed-ish has an “identical” premise, portrayal, setting and tone,” and that the parties involved knew about Norman’s series before mixed-ish was greenlit.
“Literally everyone involved in the ‘creative’ and ‘production’ aspect of ‘Mixed-ish’ was either directly or indirectly involved with Norman and the development of Norman’s Series–from Big Breakfast to Ross to Artists First and Dobbins, to Barris who ostensibly passed on Norman’s Series after being presented with it, and to ABC, which knowingly proceeded with airing a series it knew was the result of a theft and rip off perpetrated by the above-mentioned parties,” wrote Plonsker.
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