Actor Jason Mitchell who played in the film, Straight Outta Compton, has been fired off the Showtime series, The Chi, after regarding allegations of misconduct from multiple people working with Mitchell on the series. The Chi follows characters Emmett Washington (Jacob Latimore), Brandon Johnson (Jason Mitchell), Ronnie Davis (Ntare Mwine), and Kevin Williams (Alex Hibbert) throughout their lives and intertwined interactions between different groups within the south side region of Chicago. The series was recently announced renewal for a 3rd season back in spring. However, Variety spoke with one of Showtime’s Co-Presidents of Entertainment, Gary Levine, saying that the show will continue without Jason Mitchell as they planned on killing off Mitchell’s character, Brandon, in the later part of the season to ensure that he will not be returning for its 3rdseason.
A string of alleged inappropriate behavior from Mitchell lead to his dismissal from the show that apparently began with a situation in Mexico City. Mitchell states that he went out for drinks with co-worker from the show after hours from filming and offered to drive and leave her home. He claims that nothing else happened that night. But the woman alleges the instance of misconduct. The showrunner for the series, Ayanna Floyd Davis accused Mitchell of inappropriate behavior on set sometime during the first season which lead to both the cast and crew of the Showtime series to received sexual harassment training. Tiffany Boone, who played Mitchell’s on screen girlfriend also came out to claim that he allegedly sexually harassed her on multiple occasions and that she felt “unsafe” to be around Mitchell during filming.
In another Variety interview, this time with creator, Lena Waithe, she describes that she knew about allegations toward Mitchell near the end of season 1 filming. In separate interviews, Waithe and Mitchell stated that they did have a heated conversation which began with Waithe confronting Mitchell about his behavior and that he needs to treat women, more specifically, everyone with the same respect that they deserve.
Mitchell denies these allegations and said in part during a radio interview with a morning show, The Breakfast Club, that he was “taken aback” from the rise of allegations against him. Mitchell continues that the women who asserted the allegations (Davis and Boone) supposedly used the on-going #metoo movement as a “ugly weapon” against him.
Aside from being fired from the series, Mitchell was also dropped from an upcoming film that was set to debut on Netflix called Desperados, even being dropped from his rep agency, United Talent Agency.
Mitchell had gained wide popularity and recognition for his portrayal of the late rapper, Erick ‘Eazy-E’ Wright in the 2015 film, Straight Outta Compton.