Posted on 11/09/2021 3:25:47 PM PST by nickcarraway
Ingo Rademacher also shared an anti-transgender meme on social media Sunday, prompting backlash from some castmates.
Long-time General Hospital star Ingo Rademacher is out at the ABC daytime drama. He was let go after not complying with the production’s COVID vaccine mandate, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
News of his departure also comes a day after castmates called Rademacher out for sharing an anti-transgender meme on social media. Rademacher’s final episode on the show, where he’s been a regular for most of the past 25 years, is slated for Nov. 22.
Reps for ABC confirm that Rademacher ended his association with General Hospital prior to Sunday.
Rademacher has been outspoken against vaccine mandates. He shared calls for a walkout by health care and government workers this week in his Instagram Stories over the weekend, and said in an Instagram post Sunday, “I will stand with you to fight for medical freedom.”
Rademacher on Sunday also shared a photo of Dr. Rachel Levine, the first transgender person to earn four-star rank in the U.S. uniformed services, and newly elected Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, who will be the first Black woman to hold the post, via Instagram Stories. The caption on the photo reads “Hello, and welcome to ClownTown, where the dude on the left is an empowering woman, and the woman on the right is a white supremacist.”
The post drew sharp criticism from fellow General Hospital stars Cassandra James, a transgender woman, and Nancy Lee Grahn. “I am aware of a transphobic post shared by a fellow General Hospital actor. Shame on you,” James wrote on Twitter. “You have some serious unlearning and education to do. I feel deeply disappointed that such a public display of ignorance could come from our GH family.”
James added, “Misgendering trans folks is violence and if you come for one of us, you come for all of us. The cis world doesn’t get to decide which of us is valuable. I am so proud of the fans for always holding us to a high standard, for calling out transphobia and violence.”
Grahn replied to James’ tweet, writing that Rademacher “is mercifully no longer a part of the GH cast. Transphobia & misgendering are disgusting & should be unacceptable in any industry, including soaps/acting. I stand with my costar [James] & the trans community.”
Rademacher doubled down on sharing the meme in an Instagram post Monday, saying in a video that while he thinks it’s “not OK” to call a Black woman a white supremacist, “I don’t think either it’s OK to call a transgender an empowered woman, because where does that leave women?”
“I do apologize for not crossing out ‘dude’ and putting in transgender,” he says later in the video. “Me personally, I wouldn’t have written it that way.” He added that in sharing the post he wanted to call out “the hypocrisy of the left-wing media.”
Rademacher also apologized to James — “I think you’re an absolute talent and you’re very beautiful as well; I don’t think a transphobic man would say that” — and said he would address his status on General Hospital at another time. He then shared an anecdote about his son wanting to a wear a Disney princess dress when he was 3 years old. “I don’t think a transphobic dad would buy his son a Disney princess dress,” he said.
Rademacher has played Jasper “Jax” Jacks on General Hospital since 1996. He also did a year-long stint on CBS’ The Bold and the Beautiful from 2017-18 before returning to GH in 2019.
ABC and its parent Disney have dealt with several social media-related controversies in recent years. The network fired Roseanne Barr from its breakout hit Roseanne revival in 2018 after she posted a racist tweet about former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett.
Earlier this year, The Mandalorian‘s Gina Carano was let go from the Disney+ series and dropped by agency UTA after a social media post that compared being a Republican to being Jewish in the Holocaust. Emilio Estevez won’t return for season two of the streamer’s Mighty Ducks: Game Changers over what he termed “a myriad of creative differences” in a statement to Deadline; the site also reported that Estevez contracted COVID last year. Sources tell THR Estevez isn’t vaccinated.
He doesn’t want ‘the jab’ and won’t buy in to the fruitcake agenda.
Sounds like a solid citizen in my book.
The last and only soap I ever watched was Dark Shadows. Some major characters in it were gay. Jonathan Frid and Louis Edmond were most likely an item off the set. But the characters themselves were all hetero. That was in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Nowadays, gay and even tranny are part of the formula, I’d bet.
There’s another actress on the show who is a Republican and is supposed to be besties with Grahn’s character. I’m surprised she hasn’t been pushed out by now.
That Grahn, who has been on the show (also for 25 years) would cheerlead for Ingo’s firing (he played her husband at one point, but the characters are supposed to be on good terms) just is disgusting.
The issue isn’t gay actors, since most of them on the soaps play straight characters. Hell, even on “Star Trek”, Sulu was a straight male. When they rewrote his character as gay for the execrable Faux Trek reboot, even George Takei took extreme exception to that (so I at least give him credit for being true to his character). The issue is when they try to shove gay characters and trannies down our throats.
Another soap (on CBS) decided to completely rewrite a character (a straight Black female) and make “her” a Black male-to-female tranny. All the while the media was talking about how “stunning and brave” it was to have a Black tranny, actual fans and viewers were not happy about that. Indeed, it required completely changing the history of the “tranny” (she had first come to town in search of her baby she was forced to put up for adoption when she went to prison — and not male prison), and also completely altering the characterization of her male love interest (who would not in a million years have been with a tranny).
I looked at the message boards and Black women fans were especially pissed that they decided to alter this “strong Black female” into a dysfunctional “ex-male” (nevermind how the attractive actress, Karla Mosley, in the role clearly did not look like a tranny at all). Some trannies were angry that they didn’t cast a tranny for the role (as they did with the tranny on General Hospital). While it gave the show added drama, the couple sputtered out, and they sent both of them off to Europe where they eventually divorced. The actress/character came back briefly, but has vanished from sight (and the leading male actor left altogether and hasn’t been heard from in years, despite being a major character).
GH fared little better trying to couple-up gay characters, and the sole “couple” they had saw one go to prison and the other guy, after an actor switch, just simply vanish. They just are rarely popular and rarely last. I’m an unusual demographic for soaps (male, 40s, straight, Conservative and anti-Sodomite), but I know enough that the mostly female audience (which has been dwindling for decades with more alternatives to watch) just ain’t down for that.
“The last and only soap I ever watched was Dark Shadows.”
Barnabas Collins.
L
“The viewers don’t want to see gays and trannies,”
Yesterday my sis an I went to see “Spencer” at the theater - about Princess Diana. It seemed like a fairy tale; most of it seemed made up. But they just HAD to throw in a lesbian coming on to Diana. The whole theater groaned. We DO NOT want to see that.
Nancy Grahn is really a rabid liberal piece of Sh!T.
I absolutely loved it when she had to grovel in 2015. It was a pure delight.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/nancy-lee-grahn-apologizes-bashing-825681/
I’m sorry honey, but it is YOU who is “misgendering.”
They had a lesbian actress portray Diana so I guess they need the gay angle for the movie.
I doubt she’s really a lebian. Wasn’t she engaged to an actor and she cheated on him with her male director? Should they have also gotten a Muslim to play her?
Shes getting married soon to her longtime girlfriend.
Whether it's a TV actor, a concert performer, a football coach, a basketball player, an office worker, a hospital nurse, or a truck driver, people know that they are not alone in their feelings about this mandate.
-PJ
On the contrary, it's not ignorance. He's painfully aware of what's going on.
Longtime? Since 2019, doesn’t seem that long time to me. Julie Cypher was with a woman for about 9 years in the 90s and had a child with her, and after couple’s therapy had to admit to her lesbian partner she was straight after all. Apparently, Kristen stewart says she bisexal, not lesbian.
OMG! The Luke % Laura show has a transgender whatever on it. Soaps have gone to h*ll.
Bravo. Gender is Newspeak.
He wears a dress? On the show?
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