‘BMF’ Producer Suspended After Allegedly Threatening Striking Writers With SUV
Lionsgate has suspended Ian Woolf, a producer on the Starz drama BMF, after he allegedly threatened picketing Writers Guild members with his SUV on Thursday, June 8, in Atlanta.
“We take acts of intimidation and threats of violence seriously and investigate them thoroughly,” a spokesperson for Lionsgate said in a statement to TVLine. “As we continue to investigate, we have sent home the individual involved.”
Brian Egeston, a writer on Tyler Perry’s House of Payne, called Woolf out on Twitter on Thursday after the alleged incident.
“When you pointed your SUV at me as though it were a weapon and slammed the [brakes] within six feet of writers, I felt the hate and aggression of scenarios similar to Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and others who have been harmed at the hands of hate-filled oppressors,” Egeston tweeted.
In another tweet, Egeston wrote that Woolf said he was trying to scare the writers.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE MAN WHO ALMOST KILLED ME ON THE WGA PICKET LINE TODAY.
A thread… pic.twitter.com/tImgeGpguC
— Brian Egeston (@TheBrianwrites) June 8, 2023
Gabriel Alejandro Garza, a producer of The Flash and The Winchesters and a WGA strike captain, backed up Egeston’s account.
“I heard a vehicle skidding as it sped into the driveway, and turned to see an SUV coming to a stop — angled directly at me and Brian instead of angled to enter the parking lot,” Garza wrote in a note he posted to Twitter. “I made eye contact with the driver, Mr. Ian Woolf, who looked directly back at me as he hit the accelerator one more time, followed by the brakes, and skid even closer to us. … There was no reason to be pointed in that direction, other than to deliberately aim his SUV at the two of us.”
Garza added: “Mr. Ian Woolf then proceeded to park and approach us, demanding to see our WGA cards. At first, his response was, ‘I didn’t see you guys.’ However, he eventually admitted loudly, ‘I was trying to scare you!’ He admitted this twice.”
Gabriel Alejandro Garza here. I’m a WGA Strike Captain, and the other writer standing next to Brian when this happened. I joined Twitter jsut know to post this: pic.twitter.com/5UJ3Ddm0Tk
— GG (@GG2116921532691) June 9, 2023
Diya Mishra, a writer on National Treasure: Edge of History, tweeted: “I was there for this, heard how he talked about it after it happened, and watched him be completely without remorse. Just in case he tries to go on an apology tour.”
And Tom Smuts, a co-executive producer of Lucky Hank and the husband of WGA president Meredith Stiehm, wrote in a Twitter thread that he was on the picket line just moments afterward and was present “when laser-eyed [Woolf] stated repeatedly and on tape that he was trying to scare Brian and Gabe so that we would all go away.”
Smuts also claimed that Woolf “desperately pleaded with the Teamsters of Local 728 to cross our picket lines, and they refused.”
The WGA addressed Woolf’s alleged actions in a statement, per TVLine, asserting that workers “should not be threatened with physical harm when exercising their right to publicly protest and picket against unfair wages and working conditions.”
