Julianna Margulies will not return to The Morning Show for season 4. After starting off in season 2, the 58-year-old actress is saying “goodbye” to being Reese Witherspoon’s love interest on the show.
According to an insider that spoke with Variety, she turned down being in one episode of the fourth season .
This decision comes after the finale of season 3 where she had hope to see her character, Laura Peterson, grow. “We’re very, very, very early in the room, but I think I’d want to explore [Laura] more…Her dimensionality. Not just, ‘I’m Laura and I love Bradley, and she occasionally drives me crazy!’ I think there’s there’s more to Laura than that,” show runner Charlotte Stoudt told Variety.
The source also noted to the publication that the decision came before the stirrup she had last year during an interview on “The Black Room” podcast in November when she made controversial comments while speaking about the Israel-Hamas war. “You know, there was a film being shown by this Black lesbian club on the Columbia campus and they put up signs that said, ‘no Jews allowed [most likely in reference to an incident reported by the New York Post]…As someone who plays a lesbian journalist on ‘The Morning Show…I am more offended by it as a lesbian than I am as a Jew. Because I wanna say to them: You f**king idiots. You don’t exist. You’re even lower than the Jews. A, you’re Black, and B, you’re gay. And you’re turning your back against the people who support you? Because Jews, they rally around everybody, ” she told host Andy Ostroy.
Julianna Margulies apologizes for her comments accusing Black and queer people of being antisemitic for their support of Palestine:
“I am horrified by the fact that statements I made on a recent podcast offended the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities, communities I truly love and… pic.twitter.com/1f8vHa5p10
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) December 1, 2023
“I’m the first person to march [for] Black Lives Matter. When that happened to George Floyd, I put a black screen on my Instagram. Like, I ran to support my Black brothers and sisters…The fact that the entire Black community isn’t standing with us to me says either they just don’t know, or they’ve been brainwashed to hate Jews,” the actress added.
Shortly afterward, she apologized in a statement. “I am horrified by the fact that statements I made on a recent podcast offended the Black and LGBTQIA+ communities, communities I truly love and respect…I want to be 100% clear: Racism, homophobia, sexism, or any prejudice against anyone’s personal beliefs or identity are abhorrent to me, full stop. Throughout my career I have worked tirelessly to combat hate of all kind, end antisemitism, speak out against terrorist groups like Hamas, and forge a united front against discrimination. I did not intend for my words to sow further division, for which I am sincerely apologetic.”