17 Actors Fired From Movies/TV Shows For Bad Behavior

Warner Bros. fired Sheen after a public fall from grace and drug use, citing their “reasonable good faith opinion that Mr. Sheen has committed felony offenses involving moral turpitude (including but not limited to furnishing of cocaine to others as part of the self-destructive lifestyle he has described publicly).” Warner Bros. also cited self-destructive conduct, difficulty at work, and inflammatory comments — these include calling co-creator Chuck Lorre a “stupid, stupid little man.” His character was killed off, and Ashton Kutcher took over a lead role on the show. At the time, Sheen was the highest-paid actor on TV.

Spacey was fired from his hit Netflix show after actor Anthony Rapp made sexual assault allegations against him. Production on the show’s final season was put on hold — it ultimately aired with Robin Wright as its main star. Netflix also refused to work with Spacey at any future point, scrapping his film Gore. He was later ordered to pay $31 million in damages to the production company due to the money they lost for halting production and rewriting the season.

Spacey was fired from the film after he completed filming, due again to the same sexual assault allegations. He was replaced by Christopher Plummer, who re-filmed all his scenes in nine days and was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

Barr was fired after making offensive and racist comments about Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, which ABC’s entertainment president, Channing Dungey, called, “abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with our values.” 

Carano, who had made controversial comments on social media before, was asked not to return to the Lucasfilm and Disney show, and plans were scrapped for her character to have her own show. 

It was announced series regular Hartley would not return for the upcoming season of The Flash after screenshots of many of his old racist, misogynistic, and homophobic tweets surfaced on social media. One tweet read, “The only thing keeping me from doing mildly racist tweets is the knowledge that Al Sharpton would never stop complaining about me.”

He’d later claim it wasn’t directed at anyone, though some sources claim he used it in connection with his costar T.R. Knight, who is gay. The word was apparently uttered after a physical and verbal altercation between Washington and male lead Patrick Dempsey. He was later fired for his comment.

Spelling, who also said Doherty got into a physical fight with costar Jennie Garth, admitted in 2015 that she’d called her father, producer Aaron Spelling, to get Doherty fired after rising tensions on set. Doherty did return as the character in reboot/sequel 90210 and as herself alongside her costars in BH 90210.

Smollett shocked fans when he revealed he’d been at the center of a homophobic and racist attack — and then it came out that he’d made the entire thing up. He was charged with making a false police report and fired from the series, which was in its fifth season.

It actually took a few arrests for Downey Jr. to be fired from the show, but he was eventually fired in March 2001, just after being arrested for investigation of being under the influence of drugs and then checking into rehab. 

Surprisingly, he wasn’t kicked off the show until his second arrest for domestic abuse, and he still returned for a Season 7 episode as a guest.

Masterson denied the allegations, claiming they’d already been investigated and dismissed years prior and saying he was “disappointed” in Netflix’s decision. His character Rooster was killed on the show.

Alongside her husband, Loughlin was convicted of paying half a million dollars to get their daughters into USC (for which she fabricated evidence that her daughters were on the rowing team in high school), and served two months in jail. She was not in the fifth and final season of the show after appearing in the first four.

FX shut down their deal with Louis and his production company after he admitted to masturbating in front of multiple female colleagues, saying, “Now is not the time for him to make television shows. Now is the time for him to honestly address the women who have come forth to speak about their painful experiences.”

His character, who he had played since 1991, was killed off after Burton decided to leave the show rather than get the vaccine.

The exact events that led to Mitchell’s firing are a bit murky — Mitchell claims it had more to do with him asking for more money and that he doesn’t even know what he’s been accused of. However, show creator Lena Waithe says she’d been made aware of issues between Mitchell and costar Tiffany Boone, and Season 2 showrunner Ayanna Floyd Davis said, “Ultimately everyone was well aware of Jason’s behavior and his multiple HR cases.” Mitchell had also recently been fired from the Netflix film Desperados.

He was fired from Billion Dollar Spy, Shotgun Wedding, and TV series The Offer, leaving him fired from everything he was set to appear in that hadn’t wrapped production yet. He was also dropped by his agency and publicist.