Why Kerry Washington Thinks Scandal Would Never Have Been Made Today

Kerry Washington has a scandalous hot take.

While the Scandal star received critical acclaim for her groundbreaking portrayal of crisis manager Olivia Pope on  Scandal the ABC political drama, the actress was blunt when asked if she thought the show would get made today.

“No,” Washington said during a panel at the Bloomberg Screentime conference Oct. 10. “100 percent no. For so many reasons.”

When the series premiered in 2012, Washington was the first Black woman to lead a network drama in 38 years—after Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love!, which debuted on ABC in 1974—and only the third in American television history.

“I was in my early thirties at the time, so it hadn’t happened in my lifetime,” the Django Unchained star noted. “I hadn’t seen it, and everybody called it a risk. The studio thought it was a risk, the network thought it was a risk. Everybody was proud of ABC [and] Disney for taking this risk.”

Describing the current TV climate as being “risk-averse,” she added, “I don’t know that it would have been greenlit with me, with a Black woman at the center.”

The 47-year-old also pointed out that execs initially had a different actress in mind to take on her now-iconic role, for which she earned two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.

“Shonda Rhimes has talked about this publicly,” Washington said of the Scandal creator. “When they first read the script, the executives were like, ‘This is a great role for Connie Britton.’ And I love Connie, but the show is inspired by a real woman named Judy Smith, who is a Black woman.”

She continued, “If it hadn’t been inspired by a real woman who is a Black woman, then everybody would have said, ‘Let’s make her white.’ You didn’t have the option to say that.”

While Britton ultimately didn’t take on the role as Rhimes’ vision ultimately won ABC over, the Nashville alum does have quite the connection to the series: Katie Lowes worked as a nanny for her son Eyob, now 13, before being cast in the role of Quinn Perkins.

“I was so upset when she got this little pilot,” Britton joked to E! News in 2014. “I think it was really pretty selfish on her part, I'll be honest.”