Hilarie Burton Says Hallmark Channel Refused To Add LGBTQ, Diverse Characters

Hilarie Burton rose to fame on “TRL” and “One Tree Hill,” but more recently, fans have seen her in a lot of holiday TV movies. The actress revealed that she was supposed to make a movie with Hallmark Channel recently, but she was “let go” after asking for a more inclusive story.

Burton took to Twitter Sunday to share her story after reports revealed that Hallmark Channel pulled an ad featuring a lesbian couple.

“Just going through some old emails from a #Hallmark job I was ‘let go’ from back in January,” Burton wrote. “I had insisted on a LGBTQ character, an interracial couple and diverse casting. I was polite, direct and professional. But after the execs gave their notes on the script and NONE of my requests were honored, I was told ‘take it or leave it.’ I left it. And the paycheck.”

The actress, who has starred in several Hallmark movies, explained that it was unfortunate that she was “penalized for standing up for inclusivity,” but it’s a position she was lucky to be in.

She is married to and shares two children with Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who plays Negan on “The Walking Dead.” She noted that if she was in a position where she was the sole provider, she’d be forced to make a decision for money.

She continued by praising Lifetime, one of Hallmark’s big competitors. Burton starred in Lifetime’s “A Christmas Wish” earlier this year.

“The bigotry comes from the top and permeates the whole deal over there [at Hallmark],” Burton wrote. “I’ve been loudly cheering for [Lifetime] all year because they heard my concerns + RALLIED! You want inclusive Christmas magic?! We got it. Love is love.” She included the hashtag #receipts.

Hallmark Channel pulled four TV ads for wedding planning website Zola that featured nuptials with two brides kissing. The network, which started airing the ads on Dec. 2, stopped playing the commercials after conservative group One Million Moms started a petition asking the network not to air ads with LGBTQ couples. As of press time, over 27,000 people signed.

An update to the petition states that Crown Media Family Networks CEO Bill Abbott personally spoke to the organization’s leaders to say that the ad aired in error.

Reps gave a similar statement to the New York Times:

Asked to explain why the ads had been rejected, an employee of Hallmark’s parent company said the channel did not accept ads “that are deemed controversial,” according to an email exchange shared with The New York Times. A spokesman for Hallmark said the women’s “public displays of affection” violated the channel’s policies, but he declined to comment on why a nearly identical ad featuring a bride and groom kissing was not rejected.

The hashtag #BoycottHallmark was trending on Twitter on Saturday.

When Abbott spoke to International Business Times in 2017, he claimed that the network would see “significant change” in the coming years in terms of diversity.

“I feel like this is an industry-wide problem,” Abbott told IBT. “Others have made a little more progress than we have made, granted, but, at the same time, certainly we, as a brand and as an organization, we have a great track record of doing the right thing and I think that you will see significant change over the years as we continue to evolve our content.”