{"id":97254,"date":"2025-08-20T16:53:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/97254\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T16:53:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T16:53:07","slug":"shonda-rhimes-on-paramount-disney-bowing-to-trump-self-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/97254\/","title":{"rendered":"Shonda Rhimes On Paramount, Disney Bowing To Trump & Self-Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tShonda Rhimes<\/a> has claimed that there are genuine jitters in the U.S. that network storytelling is being self-censored during Donald Trump<\/a>\u2018s second term in office.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe creative powerhouse behind Bridgerton<\/a> and Grey\u2019s Anatomy said she could not comment directly on the decision-making processes that led to Paramount and Disney settling separate lawsuits with Trump, but confessed: \u201cIt definitely feels that way to a lot of people, that there is self-censoring going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAppearing in front of an enraptured audience at the Edinburgh<\/a> TV Festival, Rhimes said she was not stifling her own storytelling instincts, saying she still has the power to \u201cmake the shows that matter to me.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Mishal Husain, the former BBC Radio 4 Today show host, Rhimes \u2014 who has supported a string of Democrats, including Kamala Harris \u2014 reflected on quitting the Kennedy Center\u2019s board in February after Trump appointed himself as chairman. She said the decision was not a \u201cretreat.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes explained: \u201cI stayed on that board through his appointment, mainly because I was the treasurer of the Kennedy Center, so it was my duty as treasurer of the Kennedy Center to ask all the smart fiduciary questions while they were making that transition.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut once that transition was made, I literally was the only person left who was an artist, who was of the old regime of the Kennedy Center \u2026 and therefore, in my mind, it wasn\u2019t a board anymore. It\u2019s certainly not the board with the same mission as when I came in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes also expanded on her decision to quit Twitter\/X in 2022, saying she left simply because Elon Musk took control of the social network. \u201cI walked away and I\u2019m not paying attention anymore,\u201d she added to applause. Tuning out noise also extends to claims that Bridgerton is \u201cwoke,\u201d with Rhimes saying \u201cthat\u2019s so cute\u201d when asked about criticism of the drama\u2019s diverse casting. \u201cHow people react and take in the show is none of my business,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring the career retrospective, Rhimes was introduced by Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh, who hailed the showrunner for changing the face of television storytelling. Rhimes\u2019 arrival on stage was greeted by a standing ovation from a room full of British TV decision makers.<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes said she had only recently been able to reflect on her achievements, which span series including Grey\u2019s Anatomy (currently filming its 450th episode for ABC) and Scandal. The writer said she was no longer \u201cclimbing for survival, but climbing because I like the view.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI Was Nobody\u2019s Nepo Baby\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPondering her attempts to crack the industry, Rhimes remembered that she would return home from work and \u201csit and write every night,\u201d and it \u201cmade it feel like everything had a purpose.\u201d She eventually sold a spec script for a romantic comedy about an older white woman who falls in love with a young Black man, with Susan Sarandon and Will Smith as her imaginary leads. \u201cI was nobody\u2019s nepo baby,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes watched a lot of television after the birth of her child, and decided it was the best medium for \u201ccharacter development opportunities.\u201d In 2003, Rhimes wrote her first TV pilot for ABC about young female war correspondents, though the network eventually turned it down. But with her foot in the door, she was told Bob Iger wanted a medical series, which eventually led to Grey\u2019s Anatomy. The series was a \u201creal shock to my system,\u201d Rhimes said, explaining how she had to overcome her \u201cdeeply introverted\u201d nature to run a team of 300 people making a television show.<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes stumbled across Julia Quinn\u2019s first Bridgerton novel while she was unwell in a hotel room. She picked up the novel and devoured it, venturing out of her sick bed to purchase the rest of the series. Rhimes said she had a lot of \u201cdisdain for romance novels\u201d but could see Quinn\u2019s world on a TV screen, describing her own vision for the Regency-era show as a \u201cworkplace drama\u201d about women taking control of their lives through love.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeason 4 of Bridgerton will premiere next year, with the series already renewed for Seasons 5 and 6. Rhimes hopes to bring a further two seasons to Netflix<\/a>. As Deadline revealed last month, Bridgerton has amassed more than 300M views on Netflix over the past two years, making it the streamer\u2019s second biggest franchise after Squid Game.<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes warned writers against thinking about their work in franchise terms. \u201cWhat worries me is that people are making shows based on algorithms and numbers versus making shows based on the creative quality,\u201d she said. \u201cTell a good story, that\u2019s what we should be looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRhimes joked that she would like to continue writing beyond the age of 100, but said she would settle for her company, Shondaland, becoming her legacy. \u201cI\u2019m going to tell stories as long as I want to tell stories,\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shonda Rhimes has claimed that there are genuine jitters in the U.S. that network storytelling is being self-censored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[65660,12,22988,65408,88,217,65661,92,65410],"class_list":["post-97254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-bridgerton","tag-donald-trump","tag-edinburgh","tag-edinburgh-tv-festival","tag-entertainment","tag-netflix","tag-shonda-rhimes","tag-tv","tag-tv-markets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}