Sarah Paulson won’t have a starring role in American Horror Story: 1984

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

For every new season of AMERICAN HORROR STORY, fans can expect to see everything switched up from the previous season, with the characters, setting, tone and even the overall quality of the show being wildly different from what came before. But there has been one constant across the series after all these years, and that’s the exceptional work from Sarah Paulson, who has taken all sorts of characters and made them some of the best elements of each season. Sadly, fans will not have that satisfaction this year, as it’s been revealed that Paulson will not have a major role in this new season, and will be sitting out this round of terror.

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Variety got the exclusive that Paulson won’t have a starring role in the new season, AMERICAN HORROR STORY: 1984, after appearing in all eight of the previous seasons of the hit series from Ryan Murphy. The report says that Paulson “could appear in a cameo” at some point, but otherwise this will mark the first time she has not appeared on the show. She began her tenure after appearing in three episodes in the show’s first season and went on to have major roles in all seasons since, earning five Emmy nominations in the process. Another AHS veteran, Evan Peters, also said he’s not returning for the ninth season.

Not much is known about the new season, but Murphy did reveal the title with a short promo video some time ago, teasing a style that harkens back to 80s slasher movies. The show has also been renewed for a tenth season after this one. 

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No one involved has offered comments as to why Paulson won’t be appearing this go around, but chances are high it’s simply because she’s so busy working on other projects. She has the new series MRS. AMERICA coming out about the Equal Rights Amendment, as well as Murphy’s new Netflix series RATCHED, which centers on Nurse Ratched from Ken Kesey’s story, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” She also has the movie THE GOLDFINCH coming out this year, and the animated movie ABOMINABLE.

The new season looks like it should be a ton of fun on its own, but with Peters and now Paulson out of the cast audiences may find something is missing this time around. Not that the rest of the cast won't be great and make everything worthwhile, but those two always kicked things up ever so much more, and they will be sorely missed this time around. 

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: 1984 starts September 18 on FX