Ruth Wilson Speaks Out on ‘The Affair’ Exit: ‘I Didn’t Feel Safe’
Ruth Wilson is finally opening up about her mysterious departure from Showtime’s The Affair, which aired from 2014 to 2019.
The actress — who won a Golden Globe in 2015 for playing Alison — left the drama in 2018 when her character was killed off. A year later, Wilson first addressed the exit, attributing it to “a hostile work environment,” without further elaboration. Now, the His Dark Materials star is sharing more about why she hasn’t spoken about the topic in the past.
“The reason I haven’t gone into The Affair is that I haven’t worked out how to discuss it,” she explains to Stylist (via The Hollywood Reporter). “There’s a lot of noise and anger surrounding it, and really the power rests with me to choose how I discuss my life and my experiences.”
But she “did speak up” when she needed to. She continues, “I did have a voice. I did stand up for myself. There was a situation on The Affair where things didn’t feel right, and I dealt with them, and I managed to protect myself.”
While she didn’t share any specifics about that “situation” (in previous reports, sources claimed her conflict with showrunner Sarah Treem included “frustrations with the nudity required of [Wilson]”), she does say, “It was before #MeToo and before Harvey Weinstein — and yet my instincts were very clear and strong about what I felt was wrong, about what was going on, and what I didn’t feel safe about.”
At the time of her exit, Wilson said she wasn’t “allowed to talk about why” she wanted to leave, though she denied it was related to pay parity, as a rumor had suggested.
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