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From the outside looking in, “Living Single” was perfect. Beautiful Black people lived their best lives, with their best friends in a beautiful Brooklyn brownstone. We could feel the love that the cast had for one another.
But apparently, behind the scenes all hell was breaking loose.
The network didn’t want to invest time and money into the show. But were willing to do it for the White version of the show, “Friends.”
Executives wanted to fire Erika Alexander, who played the iconic Maxine Shaw.
And then we recently were shocked and appalled to learn that T.C. Carson, who played the unforgettable Kyle Barker didn’t leave the show, he was fired because he spoke up and out about the mistreatment he and his cast members experienced on set.
The show that brought so many of us so much joy seemed to take the actors involved through the ringer.
Recently, on Shadow and Act’s Locked Down With series Alexander shared some additional difficulties of that time.
After Carson shared that he was fired, Alexander, who played his comedic counterpart and love interested, spoke about how his absence from the show affected her. And though this happened decades ago, Alexander was brought to tears thinking about that time.
First Alexander spoke about Yvette Lee Bowser speaking about execs trying to get rid of her.
“That was news to me. I saw her say that or read it. I had no idea they wanted to remove me. Now, I did know the executives did not want to cast me. They wanted a different actress, a fantastic actress. I was told that one of the head honchos after the table read, said ‘Hey, we’re going to have to get rid of Erika because she’s not doing well at this table read.’ I don’t know how I could not do well since I had just auditioned the day before and got hired. T.C. and I were the last ones hired. But apparently, he wanted somebody else.”
Thankfully, Erika had an ally in the room.
“Apparently, there was another head honcho who called him out and said, ‘If you say anything about Erika Alexander, I’ll beat your a**.”
She said, “You can’t believe all the crazy stuff that goes on that could undermine your job even once you have it. That’s why you see actors and creators be so scared all the time.”
When it came to her cast mate, Carson there was a legit reason for that fear. Through tears, Alexander shared her reaction to Carson being fired from “Living Single.”
“I was heartbroken. I’m crying all the time, nowadays. I was heartbroken because the whole cast had chemistry but he [and I] were like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers. To have comedic chemistry is very difficult. I find that out now. You don’t know back then that it’s a gift. One there were things that I wanted to do to mitigate that. But it wasn’t available at the time. He and I have talked about this and even discussed it with Yvette Lee Bowser. It was a difficult time to say the least.
I didn’t know what I was doing after that or how to be. I tried to still be the same Max. He had become my creative partner and my comedy partner. I’m glad for the time we had and the friends I made. But he’s my brother. We’re soulmates because we are born on the same day, November 19. So there’s things we know about each other that are unspoken.”
It was for him to tell. Everyone has to decide how they want to say these things so we were careful, how we spoke about it. Even though we were all there, it took a lot of healing and time to get the whole picture.”
Later, in the interview, she spoke about David Schwimmer. She shared that he was a kind person. But she felt it was important that history be acknowledged.
You can watch the sit down in the video below.
