Kenya Barris is the latest name to be poached from their studio home and land at Netflix.
There, he joins the likes of Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy.
It was first reported in April that Barris was seeking to leave after numerous pilots through ABC Studios hadn’t made it to series and because a particular black-ish episode was pulled by the network because it talked about the NFL kneeling controversy.
The episode would have featured “Anthony Anderson’s patriarch Dre caring for his infant son on the night of an intense thunderstorm that keeps the whole household awake. Dre attempts to read the baby a bedtime story, but abandons that plan when the baby continues to cry. He instead improvises a bedtime story that, over the course of the episode, conveys many of Dre’s concerns about the current state of the country. The episode covers multiple political and social issues. In one scene, Dre and oldest son Junior (Marcus Scribner) argue over the rights of athletes to kneel during the performance of the national anthem at football games.”
But now, according to a new Variety report, the trade publication says the disagreement was over the episode referencing the 45th POTUS. “According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Disney-owned ABC’s concerns were related to comments that characters made in the episode about President Donald Trump, not to the football storyline,” their report states.
Barris’ new deal will not impact black-ish, grown-ish or his upcoming Freeform series, Besties. They will remain on their networks for their series runs and Barris will remain an EP on them.