Shonda Rhimes breaks silence on ‘Angry Black Woman’ article

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Shonda Rhimes spoke out on how talk about her race and gender “pisses [her] off” in the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter.

The mother of three, whose shows are currently responsible for ABC’s ratings dominance on crucial Thursday nights, also talked about the challenges and trade-offs involved with running three hit TV programs.

In the lengthy profile, Rhimes responded to recent controversy surrounding a New York Times review of her latest hit show How to Get Away with Murder. In the piece, the reviewer wrote, “When Shonda Rhimes writes her autobiography, it should be called ‘How to Get Away With Being an Angry Black Woman.'”

The review also drew ire for labeling star Viola Davis, who plays Professor Annalise Keating on the new hit series, as “less classically beautiful” than other potential choices for the gig.

Despite some cries for the paper to retract the piece, Rhimes instead saw it as a “good reminder” of the society we live in, saying that, “In this world in which we all feel we’re so full of gender equality and we’re a postracial [society] and Obama is president, it’s a very good reminder to see the casual racial bias and odd misogyny from a woman written in a paper that we all think of as being so liberal.”

Rhimes, 44, the creator of numerous hit shows for ABC, including Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal, also spoke out about past controversies and rumors, saying of the political thriller Scandal, “there are no Heigls in this situation.” The reference was an allusion to Katherine Heigl’s — one of the former leads on Grey’s Anatomy — messy split from the hospital drama. She also said, when commenting on how she has improved and refined her showrunning process over the years, that “I don’t put up with b*******t or nasty people. I don’t have time for it.”

On the topic of gender and race, Rhimes indicated that she’d prefer if those aspects weren’t the focal point when people discussed her work, saying, “I find race and gender to be terribly important; they’re terribly important to who I am. But there’s something about the need for everybody else to spend time talking about it … that pisses me off.”

How to Get Away With Murder, which premiered on September 25, is currently the highest-rated new drama of the season, with its debut episode pulling in over 20.3 million viewers.