13 TV Shows Canceled Over Scandalous Controversies Involving Their Stars

Celebrity chef Paula Deen was the beating heart of the Food Network for more than a decade.

Her relationship with the Food Network began in 1999, when a friend introduced her to Gordon Elliott, one of the channel's producers. Impressed by her work on a pilot named Afternoon Tea in 2001, she was offered three more cooking shows over the next few years. 

Paula’s Home Cooking premiered in 2002, Paula’s Party started airing in 2006, and Paula’s Best Dishes began in 2008. The channel also aired her story in an episode of their Chefography program in March 2006. 

The shows were massive successes, driving high ratings and making her a staple of the Food Network throughout the 2000s. Deen even won a Daytime Emmy for hosting Paula’s Home Cooking in 2007. 

However, things turned sour in 2013 when the network did not renew her contract, which expired at the end of June, after she confessed to using the N-word.

Lisa Jackson, a former general manager at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House, a restaurant Deen owned with her brother, Earl “Bubba” Hiers, filed a $1.2 million lawsuit in March 2012, alleging the siblings of racial discrimination in the workplace. 

Jackson was in charge of Hiers’ 2007 wedding and was told by Deen to arrange a “true southern plantation-style wedding.” 

Jackson claimed that Deen said she would ideally like the waiters at the event to be a “bunch of little n****s” in “long-sleeve white shirts, black shorts, and black bow ties.”

“But we can’t do that because the media would be on me about that,” Deen allegedly added.

In a legal deposition held on May 17, 2013, Deen denied using the exact language. She said that she was impressed by an all-Black wait staff at a restaurant who were dressed in the uniform she described and wanted to replicate that for her brother’s wedding, but was “afraid somebody would misinterpret.”

However, when asked if she had ever used the N-word, Deen said, “Yes, of course,” according to NBC News.  

While the Food Network did not elaborate on their reasons, many thought that the channel’s decision to fire Deen on the heels of her confession was a telltale sign that the two were connected. 

“Food Network does not tolerate any form of discrimination and is a strong proponent of diversity and inclusion,” a spokesperson for the network said in a statement to media outlets. 

In 2014, Deen bought the rights to around 440 episodes of her cooking shows and unaired footage from the Food Network to be featured on her new subscription-based digital channel, the Paula Deen Network.

Deadwood co-creator David Milch’s horse race drama Luck, featuring Dustin Hoffman, premiered on HBO in January 2012 with critical acclaim, with the network ordering a second season of 10 episodes immediately. 

However, the series was canceled a month and a half later owing to animal safety concerns, despite it earning a Rotten Tomatoes score of 82%. 

“Safety is always of paramount concern,” HBO said in a statement on March 13, 2012, announcing the decision to “cease all future production” on the show. 

“While we maintained the highest safety standards possible, accidents unfortunately happen, and it is impossible to guarantee they won’t in the future.”

The decision came after a third horse, Real Awesome Jet, was injured and had to be euthanized while filming the second season at the racetrack in Arcadia, California. 

Dr. Gary Beck, a veterinarian from the California Horse Racing Board, was on hand at the set and told The Hollywood Reporter that the horse was on her way back to the stall when she “reared, flipped over backward, and struck her head on the ground.”

Two similar incidents occurred during the production of the pilot and the seventh episode of the first season, prompting protests from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). 

The American Humane Association (AHA), the organization that HBO worked with to ensure animal safety, said that both racehorses, named Outlaw Yodeler and Marc’s Shadow, "stumbled and fell during short racing sequences," but were checked immediately by onsite veterinarians. Their fractures were severe and deemed inoperable. 

PETA cited an anonymous whistleblower in complaints to the Pasadena Humane Society and the L.A. County District Attorney’s office, claiming that the production used elderly, physically unfit, and malnourished horses, and possibly even sedated them. 

Developments since then have led to allegations of unfair dismissal against AHA. 

Former AHA production manager Barbara Casey claimed that AHA’s top management buckled under the “political and financial pressure” of HBO, which led to the network not being held formally accountable for the horses’ fates. 

They refused her request to report animal cruelty to law enforcement and fired her for being “difficult,” she said as part of an ongoing lawsuit against AHA. The Hollywood Reporter said in a 2013 article that two Luck on-set crew members, Jonne Rodarte and Jami LoVullo, were also let go for similar reasons. 

The same year, Hoffman said in a Fox News interview that a “collaboration between PETA and TMZ” was the real reason Luck got canceled. 

“It’s completely distorted,” he said. “Anyone who raises horses knows they break their legs. The accusations they made were distorted. Every time we’d race the horses, we’d rest them. They’d race for 20 seconds, then we’d rest them for an hour.”

VH1’s 2009 show Megan Wants a Millionaire was supposed to help reality TV star Megan Hauserman find the love of her life among 17 millionaires competing to be her significant other. 

The first season started airing on August 2 and earned satisfactory viewership. 

However, things took a turn when the bare and dismembered remains of one Jasmine Fiore were found in a suitcase near a dumpster in Buena Park on August 15. Authorities identified the victim as the wife of Ryan Jenkins, one of the contestants on the show, hailing from British Columbia, Canada.

Jenkins had met and married Fiore after filming the TV show ended. 

VH1 immediately halted airing as the authorities continued the manhunt for Jenkins, who had allegedly become a fugitive from law and was reportedly seen crossing back into Canada around the same time. 

Five days later, they were forced to cancel it altogether after Jenkins’ body was found at a motel in Hope, British Columbia, on August 23. He had allegedly taken his own life.

They never aired the remaining run of the series and stopped all reruns. The previous episodes were also removed from iTunes Store and video-on-demand services.

It was later revealed that Jenkins had placed third in the competition. The show was won by a 38-year-old man from Henderson, Nevada, named TJ Diab. 

The network also canceled the third season of I Love Money, in which Jenkins was a contestant and a grand prize winner. 

Mark Cronin, co-founder of 51 Minds Entertainment, the production company behind the two reality shows, later recalled that Jenkins wanted to win the $250,000 for Fiore. 

“He kept telling her on the phone, ‘I’m going to win this, and you and I are going to have the life I've always promised,’” Cronin recalled. 

“Then he would ask her, ‘Where were you last night?’ Because he's in Mexico sh*oting the show, and she lives in Las Vegas. He was very jealous and very suspicious of her. We were actually making a story of it on the show.”

Despite not being connected to Fiore’s homicide by any means, VH1 and 51 Minds still faced significant backlash for a major oversight. It emerged during the investigation that Jenkins was previously charged and convicted in 2007 for committing domestic violence against an ex-girlfriend in Calgary. 

In a statement, 51 minds said that Jenkins would’ve never been allowed on the show if they were aware of his criminal past. 

VH1 had hired Collective Intelligence, a private investigation firm, to run background checks on all the show's contestants. Since Jenkins was from Canada, Collective Intelligence outsourced the job to a Canadian firm, Straightline. 

A TMZ report claimed that Collective Intelligence later sued Straightline for at least $50,000 for reputational damage caused by Straightline's failure to uncover Jenkins’ prior conviction. Straightline ultimately paid $810,000 to settle the suit. 

19 Kids and Counting was the story of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, a devout Baptist couple living in Tontitown, Arkansas, and their 19 kids — nine daughters and ten sons — all of whose names start with the letter “J”. 

From September 2009 to May 2015, the ten-season show was one of TLC’s most popular productions, drawing 2.3 million viewers per episode in its final installment. The success of the series meant it would’ve carried on, if not for the revelation about the oldest son, Josh Duggar, violating five minor girls, including some of his sisters. 

On May 21, 2015, In Touch Weekly obtained a 2006 police report filed in Springdale, Arkansas, that confirmed the allegations. According to the report, Jim Bob learned of the incidents in 2002, and the family decided to “discipline” Josh rather than alert the authorities. 

As the incidents continued, Josh was sent to a “Christian Program” at their church for counseling. Josh had allegedly “apologized” to the female minors he had violated, and they had “forgiven” him. 

While the police investigated the matter and interviewed the victims, who corroborated the claims, they could not press charges because of the then three-year statute of limitations in Arkansas for child s*xual ab*se cases.

Josh’s sisters, Jessa and Jill, who were his victims, defended him in an interview with Fox News, saying that he was not a “child m*lester or a p*dophile or a r*pist.”

Josh got embroiled in another scandal after the infamous Ashley Madison data breach, which revealed that his credit card had been used for two subscriptions for p*rnography. He released a statement apologizing for his actions and checked himself into a rehabilitation facility. 

A spin-off show, Counting On, aired from December 2015 onwards but was canceled in 2021 following Josh’s arrest on another charge.

An ongoing federal investigation led to the U.S. Marshals detaining Josh on charges of receiving and possessing child s*xual ab*se material (CSAM) for downloading inappropriate images of children under 12 years old in May 2019. He pleaded not guilty. 

Gerald Faulkner, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, stated the files on his computer were “in the top five of the worst of the worst” things that he ever had to examine in his career.

Josh was found guilty by a jury in December 2021 and, in May 2022, was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison. 

Four years into his sentence, Josh has been seeking a new trial or the vacatur of his sentence amid the arrest of his brother, Joseph Duggar, on charges of violating a minor.  

Technically, the allegations of misconduct against Kevin Spacey were not the reason House of Cards ended. However, many believe it was surely a major factor. 

Spacey was the lead protagonist in the Netflix political thriller series created by Beau Willimon, based on the 1989 novel of the same title by Michael Dobbs. He played Frank Underwood, a corrupt politician who hatches an ambitious plan to attain power after being denied the position of Secretary of State.

The show received highly positive reviews and numerous award nominations, but the accolades were cut short when allegations against Spacey surfaced in 2017 during the filming of the sixth season. 

In October 2017, Star Trek: Discovery actor Anthony Rapp accused Spacey of making inappropriate advances towards him in 1986. Spacey was 26 at the time, and Rapp was 14. 

In a tell-all interview with Buzzfeed, Rapp shared that Spacey invited him to a party in his apartment after meeting him at a Broadway afterparty. Rapp was performing in Precious Sons during that period, and Spacey was in Long Day’s Journey Into Night. 

As the only minor at the party, Rapp quickly became bored and settled down in a bedroom, watching TV. After a while, he noticed Spacey at the door, realized everybody else had gone home, and stood up to leave. He also noted that Spacey was swaying, possibly inebriated.

This is when the alleged attack happened. 

“He picked me up like a groom picks up the bride over the threshold,” Rapp claimed. “But I don't, like, squirm away initially, because I'm like, ‘What's going on?’ And then he lies down on top of me.”

“He was trying to seduce me,” Rapp added. “I don’t know if I would have used that language. But I was aware that he was trying to get with me s*xually.”

Rapp managed to “squirm away” despite Spacey “tightening his arms” and locked himself in the bathroom to collect himself before making a beeline to the front door. He said Spacey followed him to the gate and asked if he was sure he wanted to leave. 

“The older I get, and the more I know, I feel very fortunate that something worse didn't happen,” Rapp added. 

A day after the news broke, Spacey took to X to address the matter.

“I’m beyond horrified to hear his story,” he said. “I honestly do not remember the encounter; it would have been over 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior, and I am sorry for the feelings he describes having carried with him all these years.”

Spacey also officially came out as gay and revealed he has had relationships with both men and women in the past: “I want to deal with this honestly and openly, and that starts with examining my own behavior.”

Netflix and Media Rights Capital, the producer of the series, suspended filming of the sixth season “to review the current situation and to address any concerns” of the cast and crew. 

In 2018, the sixth and final season was released with only 8 episodes, contrary to the 13-episode runs of all prior seasons.

At least 15 more individuals have come forward since, accusing Spacey of misconduct with minors and adults at social gatherings and workplaces, including during his time as the director of The Old Vic theater. 

He was found not liable in a 2020 lawsuit filed by Rapp and in several other cases of similar allegations. 

In November 2017, five women accused comedian Louis C.K. of highly inappropriate conduct via interviews given to the New York Times. 

Comic artists and writers Dana Min Goodman, Julia Wolov, Abby Schachner, Rebecca Corry, and one who chose to remain anonymous came forward, alleging that Louis C.K. either wanted to or had mast*rbated in front of them. 

The incidents took place between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s. The women, who were up-and-coming artists at the time, alleged that Louis C.K. misused his power over them as a stalwart of the industry with significant influence.

A day later, FX announced that they were cutting all ties with Louis C.K. and his production company, Pig Newton. He was removed as an executive producer from the four projects for which he was receiving compensation: Better Things, Baskets, One Mississippi, and The Cops.

FX comedy-drama series Louie, starring Louis C.K., which had been on hiatus since 2015, was also canceled. The show, loosely based on his real life, was also created, written, and directed by him.

Netflix canceled a planned second stand-up special with him, while HBO dropped him from the Night of Too Many Stars charity special and removed his past projects, including Lucky Louie and his other stand-up specials. 

His film I Love You, Daddy, with entertainment company The Orchard, scheduled to release later that month, was scrapped. 

The same day, Louis C.K. broke his silence on the accusations, admitting to them with a statement to media outlets.

“These stories are true,” the statement read. “At the time, I said to myself that what I did was okay because I never showed a woman my d*ck without asking first, which is also true.”

“But what I learned later in life, too late, is that when you have power over another person, asking them to look at your d*ck isn’t a question. It’s a predicament for them. The power I had over these women was that they admired me. And I wielded that power irresponsibly. I have been remorseful of my actions. And I’ve tried to learn from them.”

He also expressed regret for having let down his co-workers in the projects that he was involved in at the time, from which he was subsequently removed. 

Featuring popular child beauty pageant Toddlers and Tiaras contestant Alana Thompson, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo aired for two years on TLC and received somewhat negative reviews. 

Things went further south when reports surfaced of Alana’s mother, June Shannon, dating a convicted offender after he split with Alana’s father, Mike “Sugar Bear” Thompson. Even though “Mama June” denied the reports, TLC stopped production on the show in October 2014 and later canceled it. 

Almost an entire season's worth of episodes were left unaired. 

The man June allegedly dated was Mark Anthony McDaniel, who served 10 years in prison for aggravated child m*lestation of a minor and is a registered s*x offender with the Georgia Registry. June’s eldest daughter, Anna “Chickadee” Cardwell, later revealed that she was the girl whom McDaniel violated when she was 8. 

In November 2014, June told Entertainment Tonight that she had seen McDaniel only twice since his release — once by coincidence and the other to give her daughter, Lauryn “Pumpkin” Shannon, closure, as she had grown up loving McDaniel as her biological father. 

Pumpkin’s birth father is Michael Anthony Ford, who is also a convicted offender who did time for exploiting minors after being caught on To Catch a Predator in 2005. 

June also told the outlet that she believed “something had happened” between McDaniel and Anna, but she told her “not to bring up the past again” as it would be “hard” for her to navigate those emotions. 

The family has appeared on other reality shows since the cancellation, including Mama June: Family Crisis, which featured a bitter feud between Alana and June after the former accused the latter of stealing money from her Coogan account. 

Created by Matt Williams, Roseanne revolved around the family of Roseanne Conner, played by Roseanne Barr, in the fictional town of Lanford, Illinois. It originally aired from October 1988 to May 1997, and was later revived for a 10th season in 2018. 

Following the success of the new season, which drew an average of more than 18 million viewers each week, it was renewed for another 11-episode season. The decision was reversed after Barr’s series of derogatory tweets about Valerie Jarrett in May 2018.

Jarrett, an Iranian-American government official, was the longest-serving senior advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama and has been the CEO of the Barack Obama Foundation since 2021. She was also assistant to the former president for Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, overseeing the office of the same name, and chaired the White House Council on Women and Girls.

Barr’s deleted tweet about Jarrett was a racist comment likening her to an offspring of the “Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes.”

Then-ABC Entertainment President Channing Dungey had already announced the cancellation of the show, calling Barr’s comments “abhorrent, repugnant, and inconsistent with the network’s values.” Then-Disney chief executive Bob Iger also mirrored the sentiment. 

Barr’s co-workers Wanda Sykes, Emma Kenney, Michael Fishman, and Sara Gilbert openly voiced their protests. Her talent agency, ICM Partners, also dumped Barr.

The next morning, Barr said she was sorry for her actions: “I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me. My joke was in bad taste.” 

She added that she was leaving the platform, which was then called Twitter. She also blamed her words on a prescription sedative-hypnotic medication, Ambien, and labeled her words “egregious” and “indefensible.”

Two months later, Barr mourned the damage her actions had caused in an hour-long interview on Sean Hannity's Fox News show.

“It cost me everything,” Barr said. “I wish I had worded it better.” 

Elsewhere in the interview, she insisted that the tweet was meant to address U.S.-Middle Eastern policy and had no racial overtones.

Around a year later, Barr pointed fingers at her co-star Sara Gilbert, who played Roseanne’s daughter Darlene in the sitcom, for ruining her life.

Gilbert had called Barr’s comments “abhorrent” at the time. 

“She destroyed the show and my life with that tweet,” Barr told the Washington Post in March 2019. “She will never get enough until she consumes my liver with a fine Chianti.”

A spin-off titled The Conners premiered in October 2018 without Barr and ran until 2025. 

It was announced in September 2025 that MomTok influencer and reality TV star Taylor Frankie Paul would lead the 22nd season of The Bachelorette. 

Three days before its March 22 release, TMZ published a video of a 2023 domestic violence incident involving Paul and her ex-partner, Dakota Mortensen. The video went viral, pushing Disney to pull the plug on the ABC show. 

While the details of the case had already been publicly disclosed before Paul’s casting, the graphic nature of the video seemed to have forced the hand of the Disney brass.

In 2023, Paul was charged with as*ault, criminal mischief, and domestic violence in the presence of a child, stemming from an argument with Mortensen. Their dispute was featured in the first season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, the reality show that gave Paul mainstream fame. 

Court records say that Paul pleaded guilty in abeyance to an aggravated as*ault charge in August 2025, and the other charges were dismissed with prejudice. She was placed on three years’ probation. 

The video TMZ published in March 2026 appeared to be a recording of the aforementioned fight. While the footage did not reveal what led to the argument, it showed Paul shoving, kicking, and throwing barstools at Mortensen, one of which seemingly hit her daughter, Indy, who is now eight years old. 

“This is called physical ab*se. Your daughter is right here,” Mortensen could be heard saying. “Your daughter just got hit in the head by a metal chair.”

Mortensen denied being the one behind the leak and said that his focus was entirely on his son, Ever, whom he shares with Paul.

Paul, meanwhile, said in a statement that she had been “silently suffering extensive mental and physical ab*se” and that there was “more to the context of everything.”

While there is no update on the 23rd season of The Bachelorette, a source has told US Weekly magazine that Paul has reconciled with the winner of her season, Doug Mason. 

The two are “seeing each other” again and are “trying to make it work,” the insider claimed. 

Once a top-tier daytime talk show that pulled in millions of viewers daily and served as a premier promotional platform for celebrities, The Ellen DeGeneres Show came crashing down after a workplace controversy in 2022. 

The pop culture phenomenon ended on May 26, 2022, after 19 seasons, 3339 episodes, and 64 Emmys. 

For years, DeGeneres was known for her “be kind” mantra with acts of charity and giveaways. However, things changed after an exchange with Dakota Johnson on the show that seemed harmless at the time. 

In a viral 2019 interview, Dakota Johnson corrected Ellen DeGeneres for claiming she wasn't invited to Johnson's 30th birthday party, stating, “Actually, no, that’s not the truth, Ellen.”

While the widespread social media claim that “Dakota Johnson ended Ellen” is a bit of an exaggeration, Johnson's blunt callout of DeGeneres helped shift the narrative. 

A July 2020 exposé by BuzzFeed News hinted that her onscreen personality might be hiding an uglier truth underneath the mask of generosity. 

Employees of the talk show, both former and those still working under DeGeneres at the time, came forward anonymously with accusations of racism, humiliation, and intimidation on set. 

“That ‘be kind’ bullsh*t only happens when the cameras are on. It’s all for show,” one employee told the outlet. One allegedly received comments about their race, and others said that they were fired for taking medical or bereavement leave.

While DeGeneres was not specifically accused of such behavior, one former employee insisted that it was her “responsibility to go beyond” when the executive producers lied to her, claiming that everyone in production was “very happy.”

Executive producers Ed Glavin, Mary Connelly, and Andy Lassner told BuzzFeed News at the time that they were taking the accusations “very seriously.” But the show stayed on air for two more years. 

DeGeneres addressed the cancellation of the show in a 2024 stand-up routine, musing on how becoming the “most hated person in America” made her cry and affected her relationship with her wife, Portia de Rossi.

The buddy-cop action-comedy-drama, developed by Matt Miller based on the popular film franchise of the same name, was canceled after three seasons amid reports of on-set misconduct and hostility between cast and crew.

The Fox show, which ran from September 2016 to February 2019, featured Clayne Crawford as Martin Riggs and Damon Wayans as Roger Murtaugh, the two detective leads originally played by Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in the movies. 

In 2018, reports surfaced alleging that Crawford and Wayans were not on friendly terms behind the scenes. A lack of professionalism had become so frequent that security guards had to be present on set at all times to prevent disagreements from escalating into physical violence. 

Audio and video recordings from the set seemed to align with the allegations.
 
In April, a Deadline report claimed that the show was put in jeopardy because of Crawford’s behavior on several instances, including one where he yelled “Shut the f*ck up” at a crew member.

The actor addressed and apologized for in an Instagram post: “I am incredibly sorry if my passion for doing good work has ever made anyone feel less than comfortable on our set, or feel less than celebrated for their efforts.”

In May, reports emerged that Crawford had been fired and replaced. Wayans denied being behind the decision but began jokingly responding to fan suggestions about who his new co-actor should be. 

Crawford later claimed in an interview with the Drinkin’ Bros. podcast that the showrunners were “blackmailing” him with the set recordings, and he felt “humiliated” over being sent to anger management sessions. He added that he learned he had been fired through the media and never received a call from Warner Bros. 

The promotional media for the third season confirmed that Crawford had been fired from the show and that his character had passed away. Seann William Scott replaced him as the co-lead, portraying a new character, Wesley Cole. The season ended with a cliffhanger, leaving the possibility of a season 4 open. 

While filming for season 3 was complete, Wayans announced he was leaving after the first 13 episodes, but later signed on to stay till the end and said he was open to another installment. 

During the Fox Entertainment upfronts call in 2019, the then-CEO, Charlie Collier, said that canceling Lethal Weapon was among a “series of tough choices” but refused to answer whether the on-set controversies were behind the decision.

Two and a Half Men, featuring Charlie Sheen as Charlie Harper, Jon Cryer as his brother Alan, and Angus T. Jones as Alan’s son Jake, ran successfully for seven seasons before facing a hiccup. 

In February 2010, CBS halted production for the eighth season for a month after Sheen entered a rehabilitation center, but it resumed shortly afterward. He went into rehab again in January 2011 after several months of controversy surrounding a contract dispute between Sheen and CBS. The show was put on hiatus again. 

The next month, Lorre devoted his weekly vanity card to his healthy lifestyle, whose last line read: “If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I’m gonna be really p*ssed.”

The same day, Sheen went on The Dan Patrick Show and accused CBS and Warner Bros executives of not letting him return to the show. Next week, Sheen appeared on the Alex Jones Show and openly made anti-Semitic attacks on Lorre, calling him “Chaim Levine.” Lorre’s birth name is Charles Levine.

“I didn’t care about that vanity card, I went straight home and dispelled that, that was actually one of the few compliments that clown has paid me in frickin’ almost a decade,” Sheen said. 

“I embarrassed him in front of his children and the world by healing at a pace that this un-evolved mind cannot process. I’ve spent, I think, close to the last decade, I don’t know, effortlessly and magically converted your tin can into pure gold. And the gratitude I get is this charlatan chose not to do his job, which is to write.”

In response, CBS ceased production for the remainder of the season, costing stakeholders an estimated $10 million. Sheen then proceeded to attack Lorre even more, saying he “violently hated” the showrunner.

In an angry letter to TMZ, Sheen wrote, “What does this say about Chaim Levine after he tried to use his words to judge and attempt to degrade me. I gracefully ignored this folly for 177 shows. I fire back once, and this contaminated little magg*t can’t handle my power and can’t handle the truth. I wish him nothing but pain in his silly travels, especially if they wind up in my octagon.”

Sheen continued to disparage Lorre in multiple interviews thereafter. Sheen also labeled his co-star, Cryer, “a turncoat, a traitor, a troll” for not reaching out during his battle with drinking problems and cutting ties with him after he was fired.

In March, CBS terminated Sheen’s contract, citing “moral turpitude” as the main reason for the split. 

The show later returned with a ninth season, featuring Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt, and went on to run for three more seasons. Charlie Harper was removed, citing an off-screen demise. 

Jon & Kate Plus Eight was one of TLC’s highest-rated programs, revolving around Jon and Kate Gosselin and their sextuplets and twins. 

In 2009, they filed for divorce amid reports of Jon committing infidelity. In 2010, the series returned, renamed Kate Plus Eight, focusing on Kate as a divorced single mother raising the children, with Jon minimally participating. 

On October 1, Jon’s lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, sent a cease-and-desist letter to TLC, forcing the network to suspend production. The cast and crew were barred from a Pennsylvania property Jon and Kate owned as a couple. 

The Insider reported at the time that, in the letter, Jon threatened to “notify the local authorities to effectuate police action” in the event of trespassing. The letter was reportedly dated the same day TLC announced Jon’s reduced role in the reality show. 

In an hour-long interview on Larry King Live, Jon publicly stated his feelings about the show, saying it was “not healthy” for his kids to continue appearing on the show. 

In a statement, Kate said that she was “saddened and confused” by Jon’s comments.

“I do the show for my family because I believe it provides us opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have,” she said. “Jon used to share that belief until as recently as the day the network announced the name change of the show and indicated that Jon would have a lesser role in the show.

Days later, TLC sued Jon for breach of contract. The deal he signed with the network, allowing access to himself, his kids, and his property, was still valid when he sent the cease-and-desist order. TLC won the injunction in 2010, leading to a confidential settlement.

Kate Plus Eight returned in April 2011, but it was later announced that the series would be shut down after 150 episodes aired. The series aired for three more seasons and ended in July 2017.