Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter fired from spin-off for 'joke about Walt Disney being antisemitic'

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter has revealed it was a controversial joke about Walt Disney killing Jews that led to the studio firing him as showrunner of spinoff series Mayans MC.

Last month, Sutter was dismissed by FX CEO John Landgraf and Disney TV Studios and ABC Entertainment chairman Dana Walden following “multiple complaints” about his on-set behaviour.

It’s now emerged it was a line about Disney written for an episode of Mayans MC that started to “ring some bells” for the studio, which was acquired by Fox in March.

Speaking to Deadline, Sutter said: “Here’s what I did wrong on the studio network side, the reason why I had to go away. It all started with a joke. And not a very good one.

“There was a line in the season two premiere. EZ (JD Pardo) and Coco (Richard Cabral) were getting off the bus at the school where the drugs were being processed. There was supposed to be a really gnarly playground out front. Filled with debris, dangerous looking swings, sharp objects, rusty jungle gym, etc. As they exited, Coco sees EZ’s distracted and says: ‘Lighten up Boy Scout,’ and gesturing to the playground, says, ‘We’re going to Disneyland.’ EZ replies: ‘Yeah? Guess this is where Walt buried all the Jews he had killed.’ Coco comments: ‘That’s dark man.’ And exits.”

Sutter, who described the joke as a “f*** you” response to Disney meddling with the show’s production, agreed to remove the line when asked, but ended up adding a new one in entirely: when Coco says “We’re going to Disneyland,” EZ replies: “Yeah, if Mickey and Pluto were paedophiles.”

He claims that Disney bosses held up the show's progress throughout the second season.

Sutter’s abrasiveness has been detailed in the past, with the man himself wondering how he would fit into the Disney landscape following its acquisition of Fox.

He said in an open letter following the dismissal: “At least being fired for being an abrasive dick is on brand.”

The writer and executive producer was the driving force behind successful FX series Sons of Anarchy, which ran for seven seasons and drew to a close in 2014.

In 2018, he told The Hollywood Reporter he sat down with Disney and “...had a conversation about, ‘This is the current climate. We don’t suspect that you’re going to sabotage anything, but we need to do the due diligence.’ And at first it was disconcerting because I’m like, ‘What does that mean? Does it mean there’s a new watchdog on my shoulder?’ And it didn’t mean any of that. It was basically, ‘We know who you are, we know what you can do, we have to make sure that when new entities come in that we can vouch for [you]. And at the very least we can say we have had this conversation.’”

Mayans MC's second season, which is available to watch in the UK on BBC iPlayer, ends on 5 November. Elgin James will take over as sole showrunner should the show get commissioned for a third.