Over the weekend, Afton Williamson announced that she’d quit her role on The Rookie citing of racism and sexual harassment on set. On Monday night, she revealed in an Instagram post the names of the people she said were responsible.
Williamson said the showrunners ignored her complaints of “racial discrimination/racially charged inappropriate comments” from the head of the show’s hair department, Sally Nicole Ciganovich, and sexual harassment from an recurring guest star, now identified as Demetrius Grosse. It appears that Williamson has also edited Sunday’s Instagram post, in which she said she’d be leaving the series, to include their names.
After thanking her fans, Williamson wrote Monday that,
…
The rippling effect it has had in just a few hours shows how much this world is aching with victims of racism, discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual abuse all of it. I am no stranger to all of the above even before this experience. But it is through this experience and my platform that God pushed me to use the power within me.
…
On Monday morning during the network’s Television Critics Association summer press tour, ABC president Karey Burke said that she is “waiting for the results of that investigation” to take action.
“At that time, those answers and those conclusions will help guide us about how to handle those situations in the future, if in fact there has been some sort of communication breakdown. I don’t have any more answers than that right now,” Burke said.