Previously, it was revealed that American Gods actor Orlando Jones was fired from the show. Jones, who played Mr. Nancy, blasted the showrunner, Charles Eglee on Twitter earlier. Now, the company behind the show, Freemantle, is firing back.
Jones cited racism in his Tweet earlier, saying that Eglee fired him for "sending the wrong message for black America."
In an interview with Deadline, the company insisted that the reason they let Jones go was purely plot related.
"The storylines of American Gods have continually shifted and evolved to reflect the complex mythology of the source material," said a spokesperson for the company. "Mr. Jones' option was not picked up because Mr. Nancy, among other characters, is not featured in the portion of the book we are focusing on within Season 3."
Jones' Tweet from earlier in the day can be viewed below.
Jones declared, "I'm not going to name names but the new Season 3 showrunner is Connecticut born and Yale-educated, so he's very smart and he thinks that Mr. Nancy's angry, get shit done is the wrong message for black America." The actor continued, saying, "This white man sits in that decision-making chair and I'm sure he has many black bffs who are his advisors and made it clear to him that if he did not get rid of that angry god Mr. Nancy he'd start a Denmark Vesey uprising in this country. I mean, what else could it be?"
Aside from playing Mr. Nancy on the show, Jones served as a writer and producer for Season 2.
Based on the Neil Gaiman novel of the same name, American Gods stars Ricky Whittle, Emily Browning, Pablo Schreiber, Crispin Glover, Bruce Langley, Yetide Badaki, Ian McShane, Mousa Kraish, Kahyun Kim, Demore Barnes, and Chris Obi. Season 3 began filming on Oct. 9 and will premiere some time next year.