Nine years after her “Desperate Housewives” character Edie Britt was killed off, Nicollette Sheridan is still fighting a high-profile legal battle over her acrimonious exit from the show.
“I was the victim of assault and battery on the set of ‘Desperate Housewives’ by the creator of the show, my boss,” Sheridan tells EW in a new interview. The actress maintains that show creator Marc Cherry struck her in the head during an incident and, after she complained about the altercation, he wrote her off the show. “I reported him and was retaliated against for doing so and fired. That is against the law,” she says.
“I was vilified for standing up for my rights, not only as a woman but as a human being. And I was punished for it,” she continues. “But that wasn’t going to stop me because I had to get my dignity back, and if I’d let it slide, I couldn’t have looked myself in the mirror.”
Sheridan took time away from acting, retreating to her California farm and out of the spotlight. “What happened at the end of ‘Desperate Housewives’ was degrading and demoralizing. It sent me under a rock,” she says. “I really grappled with what happened, losing faith in people and really not trusting the business at all.”
The actress says she was emboldened by the Time’s Up movement to make her return to TV.
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“It is so empowering to not feel alone and to hear other stories. It really helps,” Sheridan remarks. The actress is set to make her return to TV as the scheming Alexis Carrington on the rebooted ensemble drama “Dynasty” later this month, reprising the iconic role played by Joan Collins in the original series.
“I really wanted to work with nice people. That has been something that has coloured the past 10 years of my life,” she explains.
A judge threw Sheridan’s case out last year but the actress is appealing the decision. A rep for Cherry tells EW, “Nicolette Sheridan was not a victim at the hands of Marc Cherry — a court has already ruled to that effect after hearing the testimony of multiple witnesses. We are disappointed that the judicial determination continues to be ignored.”
