Quinta Brunson Denies Giving ‘Abbott Elementary’ Credit for Tyler James William’s ‘Heartthrob’ Status

Dan Clarendon February 25, 2023, 1:05 pm

Tyler James Williams and Quinta Brunson — Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Quinta Brunson’s comments about costar Tyler James Williams’ “heartthrob” status have taken on a life of their own, it seems, and now the Abbott Elementary star-creator is setting the record straight.

In an interview with The Guardian published online on Friday, February 24, Brunson responded to criticism that she wrote herself into an onscreen relationship with a TV heartthrob on the ABC sitcom. (In an article published a week earlier, a Jezebel author wrote that she was “simply living for Brunson’s decision to cast an aggressively hot man like Williams [who plays Gregory on Abbott Elementary] to be her scene partner” and called the Everybody Hates Chris alum an “absolute smokeshow of a man.”)

Brunson finds such discourse sexist and bemusing, as she told The Guardian.“What’s funny is when Tyler and I started working together, we both knew he was not regarded as this ‘hot man in Hollywood,’” she added. “I told him: ‘Dude, you’re gonna turn into a heartthrob, the way Gregory is getting written.’”

Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams in 'Abbott Elementary'

Gilles Mingasson/ABC

The 33-year-old also observed that this kind of criticism — also seen with Mindy Kaling and The Mindy Project and Lena Dunham and Girls — minimizes the work of female TV writers. “I saw it with Issa [Rae] in Insecure,” she said. “There’s this narrative that gets put on it, like: ‘Oh my God, they gave themselves a hot male lead!’ Whereas, actually, this person is hot to you because we’re telling you they’re hot. You weren’t thinking about them before!”

https://twitter.com/quintabrunson/status/1629299800561840129

Later that day, The Hollywood Reporter tweeted an article about that Guardian interview, with the angle that Brunson said that Abbott Elementary “deserves the credit for turning Tyler James Williams ‘into a heartthrob.’”

Brunson replied to that tweet, writing, “No, I didn’t.”

Williams, for his part, said he has gotten different reactions from passersby since Abbott Elementary premiered. As the Golden Globe winner told Jimmy Fallon earlier this month, fans will raise their eyebrows suggestively when they see him now. “Oh, you’ve been seeing me on Abbott — you think I’m sexy,” he said. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Abbott Elementary, Wednesdays, 9/8c, ABC