Veteran soap opera actor Ingo Rademacher, best known for his role in “General Hospital,” is suing Disney-owned ABC after the company ostensibly fired him for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The actor, though, says his legal team was able to expose evidence of political animus toward Rademacher — the reason they claim the actor was really fired.
“ABC had a duty to accommodate Ingo,” reads one of Rademacher’s team’s legal filings. “Instead, it put him through a sham process that was designed to fail, and which was meant to cover up the real reason for Ingo’s termination: his political views.”
During an interview with Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham, which can be listened to here on Morning Wire, Rademacher details what his team found in the legal discovery process and the actor reasserts his commitment to free speech.
“I was fired for not complying with the vaccine mandate,” Rademacher told Basham. “But I had kind of suspicions about maybe that it was political, because in 2020, I started speaking out, started speaking my political views on my social media accounts, my Twitter and my Instagram, because I thought that was my right — little did I know.”
“It is my right,” he continued. “And everyone’s like, ‘Are you crazy to speak out against this?’ And I’m like, well, no, this is freedom of speech. This is very important.
If other people on the show get to speak, then so do I. And if they have different views, that’s totally fine with me.”
His legal team worked “to expose the political animus” towards the actor, despite “ABC lawyers’ insisted that such evidence didn’t exist,” Rademacher explained.
“At the last minute, all of a sudden, they found a bunch of emails and text messages that showed the political animus towards me,” he said. “And that included emails and text messages between cast and crew.
One of them was a producer calling me an ignorant racist — just name-calling for no reason. I think that kind of just shows the depth that Hollywood goes to in order to cover up the political discrimination.”
Rademacher noted that actress Gina Carano, who was fired from Disney-owned Lucasfilm back in 2021, is a “perfect example” of such political discrimination.
“When she started speaking out against the narrative, they started looking for any post of hers that they could use to fire her,” he explained. “And they didn’t even hide it.”
Rademacher seemed to become a target when he spoke out about issues like COVID and transgenderism. With the former, the actor said at the time that the vaccine was not intended to “stop the spread.” Notably, Pfizer chairman Albert Bourla said in 2020 that the company did not examine if the COVID vaccine stops transmission during development. “This is something that needs to be examined,” Bourla said.
When it comes to transgender ideology, Rademacher was accused of “misgendering” a trans person.
He also argued that biological males who identify as trans should not be taking achievements or invading the spaces of girls and women — an opinion supported by the vast majority of Americans.
“I’ve never said anything to anybody about not taking the vaccine, this was literally just — we shouldn’t have vaccine passports,” Rademacher explained one of his apparently controversial posts. “And you know, that they were really, really upset about that. They were talking about recasting me, and things like that.”
“We have the emails from them actively talking about figuring out a way to let me go well before the vaccine mandate even came along,” he said. “So when that came along, they were just like, ‘Okay, well, we’ll just use this, he’s not going to get vaccinated, and we’ll just deny the religious exemption.”
“Maybe I’m naive in that way, but I really believe in freedom of speech,” the actor said, noting of his mistreatment. “And I advocate for anybody else that’s on the show.”
His former colleague Nancy Lee Grahn is very vocal about her left-wing views online, Rademacher noted, but said that he gladly advocates for her freedom of speech. “It’s still her freedom to speak, that is the most important thing to protect.
And that’s one of the main things I think that we’re fighting for — besides the vaccine mandate being unconstitutional, and the religious exemption being denied.
Freedom of speech is at the heart of a well-functioning country; we have to have debate and nobody wants to debate anymore.
They just want to call you names, try to smear you as much as possible, which is what happened with me.”
Following his response, Basham noted that Lee Grahn was one of the people who essentially cheered Rademacher’s firing, openly online.
“She jumped on the virtue signaling train,” the actor responded. “And wanted to announce to everybody that I was ‘mercifully’ no longer on the show.”
“Announcing that I was no longer on the show, I think was really disappointing,” he continued. “But I don’t mind working with somebody like that at work.
It doesn’t bother me because, again, it comes down to freedom of speech. And I’m a huge supporter of that. If you want to talk about your political views and social views on your social media account, which is what she does, then I get to enjoy the same right.
Now, she can disagree with me, and we can argue about it — not at work, obviously. But also, I don’t have a problem working with people that I don’t agree with.
It doesn’t doesn’t bother me. I don’t talk about my politics at work. But my social media is my social media account.
And I think I should have the right to say whatever I want, and somebody else like her is enjoying her freedom to say whatever she wants.”
Basham then asked Rademacher, “What is your sense in Hollywood of just how many performers and other industry professionals are suppressing their views out of fear of the kind of job-loss and blacklist that you describe?”
“I’m gonna be guessing it’s probably somewhere close to half the people at work with me, that their views do not align with the current media narrative and Hollywood — they are more on my side of this than anything else,” the actor responded.
“The people who do agree with my views, or are afraid to speak up — you get private messages, you get phone calls from friends, and they’re like, ‘Man, you have a lot of courage. But I just can’t do it, I just can’t fight the fight.’”
“They’re just not going to say anything,” he continued. “And, to me, I walked away from an incredible job.”
“From a spiritual perspective, I do believe that I was kind of chosen for this fight, because I wasn’t going to back down,” Rademacher added. “And let me just say to everybody, suing is not fun. It has completely thrown our lives upside down.
We had to move from an amazing community for my kids; they had a great life there and I had to tear them away from that life.
They destroy lives when they don’t stand for equal rights for everybody and freedom of speech. And yes, everybody is afraid to speak up in Hollywood, and when you do, they find a way very quickly to get rid of you.”
