13 years after an unceremonious exit from the NBC drama Heroes, actor Leonard Roberts defined in a first-person essay printed by Selection on Wednesday that the set’s poisonous setting culminated in his firing.

“Have been the folks I labored with racists? Even now, my intuition is to hedge, and say that I met many nice folks whereas on Heroes, a few of whom I nonetheless name associates,” Roberts wrote. “Or to admit I can’t converse to what was within the hearts of the powers that be, particularly once I was not often afforded the chance to look them within the eye. However do these info, nevertheless true, negate my perception that I labored in an setting during which whiteness was the default and splendid? Or that it was clear my sole goal was to protect that splendid, on or off digicam, regardless of the way it compromised me as an artist, an expert and a person? They don’t.”

In his piece, Roberts particularly known as out his co-star Ali Larter for a collection of microaggressions. In a single occasion, he recalled, Larter blanched at having to carry out an intimate scene with Roberts, however appeared to don’t have any misgivings about filming an identical scene with their costar Adrian Pasdar, who’s white.

“After watching the episode, I requested Pasdar if there had been any considerations related to what I witnessed throughout my episode,” Roberts wrote. “He replied to the opposite, and talked about her openness to collaboration and even improvisation. I contemplated why my co-star had exuberantly performed a special scene with the Petrelli character involving overt sexuality whereas carrying lingerie, however discovered elements of 1 involving love and intimacy expressed by way of dialogue with my character, her husband, disrespectful to her core. I couldn’t assist questioning whether or not race was an element.”

In accordance to Selection, Larter was given ample time to reply to Roberts’s piece. Larter, nevertheless, didn’t reply to the commerce publication on the document. As a substitute, she launched a press release to the Selection sister website, TVLine.

“I’m deeply saddened to hear about Leonard Roberts’ expertise on Heroes and I’m heartbroken studying his notion of our relationship, which completely doesn’t match my reminiscence nor expertise on the present,” she mentioned to TVLine. “I respect Leonard as an artist and I applaud him or anybody utilizing their voice and platform. I’m really sorry for any function I’ll have performed in his painful expertise throughout that point and I want him and his household the perfect.”

In his piece, Roberts wrote that whereas his character was initially supposed to issue within the hit present’s second season, he was later advised by showrunner Tim Kring that his character was being written off due to “the Ali Larter state of affairs.”

“Kring mentioned he felt my character had been painted right into a nook, due to the truth that ‘we’ didn’t have ‘chemistry,’ and that any try to create a brand new storyline for D.L. [Roberts’s character] simply felt like ‘the tail wagging the canine,’” Roberts wrote. “I replied that I discovered it attention-grabbing he had created a world the place folks flew, painted the longer term, bent time and house, learn minds, erased minds and have been indestructible, but by some means the potential story resolution of my character getting divorced left him totally confounded. I additionally questioned how a ‘we’ situation may very well be cited as justification for the firing of ‘me.’”

As Roberts famous, regardless of a solid that included folks of shade, together with three Black actors, there have been no Black writers on the present’s workers.

Stated Kring in a press release to Selection: “In 2006, I set out to solid probably the most numerous present on tv. Variety, interconnectivity and inclusivity have been groundbreaking hallmarks of Heroes. So too was the massive, numerous solid that frequently rotated off and onto the present, with none ever being written off primarily based on their race. Wanting again now, 14 years later, given the very completely different lens that I view the world by way of right now, I acknowledge {that a} lack of variety on the higher ranges of the workers could have contributed to Leonard experiencing the shortage of sensitivity that he describes. I’ve been dedicated to enhancing upon this situation with each undertaking I pursue. I bear in mind Leonard fondly and need him nicely.”