ABC President Talks Shelved 'Black-ish' Ep, Says She'd 'Love to Continue' Working With Kenya Barris

ABC president Channing Dungey says Barris was on board with shelving a charged, NFL-centric episode.

Kenya Barris
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Kenya Barris

ABC president Channing Dungey claimed on a Tuesday press call that Black-ish creator Kenya Barris agreed on shelving the infamous NFL-centric episode. Deadline writes that Dungey also touched on ABC’s business relationship with Barris, speculation regarding the writer’s four-year deal, and how internal tensions have been overblown.

We previously reported on Barris’ role at ABC, and how the show creator has been attempting to get out of his four-year contract early. With colleagues Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy both securing themselves cushy Netflix deals, it’d make sense for Barris to wish for something similar—particularly if ABC is creatively meddling in his work. 

In Dungey’s mind, of course, that is not the case whatsoever. While it’s become the main narrative that the studio had issues with “Please, Baby Please” exploring NFL players’ right to kneel during the national anthem, Dungey maintains she and Barris have reached nothing but mutual decisions over the course of their business relationship.

“With this particular episode, there were a number of different elements to the episode that we had a hard time coming to terms on,” said Dungey. "Much has been made about the kneeling part of it, which was not even really the issue, but I don’t want to get into that. At the end of the day, this was a mutual decision between Kenya and the network to not put the episode out.” 

Dungey says ABC stands firmly behind Barris and allows him to creatively express anything he feels is worth putting out. “We’ve long been supportive of Kenya and his team tackling challenging and controversial issues in the show; and we’ve always, traditionally, been able to come to a place creatively where we felt good about the story that he was telling even if it felt like it was pushing some hot buttons.” 

Dungey claims ABC is “thrilled and excited to be moving into the fifth season of Black-ish,” and that they “loved working with Kenya and would love to continue.” And why not? Barris’ show is a critical and mainstream success, from a director who just made history with Girls Trip. If Dungey’s claims that the two parties are “working on future business” is true, hopefully there’s an incentive more inspiring than a contract that allows him to peacefully do so. As it stands, it looks like everything here is gravy—unless certain nuances have been left untold. 

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