I Lost a TV Deal for Telling the Truth About Gaza

Since that tweet, my agents disappeared, my deal evaporated, and I’ve been quietly shut out of the industry I built a life in.

Let me tell you what happens when you cry at the wrong time on the internet.

In 2024, I posted one tweet about Gaza. One.

I had just finished writing WHERE RABBITS GATHERED, a novel about genocide. A big, heartbreaking historical book about the colonization of New Mexico by Spain from 1580 to 1680, based on my own family tree—painstakingly researched, spiritually gutting, written with the emotional depth of someone who’s seen some things and survived to type it up. I felt haunted but proud. Like, I did it. I spoke to ghosts and wrote their stories. Then I looked up and saw genocide happening again. Not in history this time. On TikTok. On CNN. On someone's ring cam.

Children. Blown to pieces. Parents screaming into rubble. I cried. And then I did what any writer with a heart and a WiFi signal would do:

I posted about how terrible genocide is.

Just one post. Sad. Heartfelt. Not aggressive. Not hashtagged. Not part of a campaign. Just… human.

And within minutes, my phone rang.

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When the Call Comes From Inside the Machine

Two pretty, young, happy, warm-sounding women executives from Universal Content Productions. Jen and Allie. Bright voices. Cheerful. Like they were calling to tell me I won a spa weekend with them, not to cancel a TV deal we had together to adapt another of my novels, The Dirty Girls Social Club, for the screen.

“We absolutely love the book,” they said.
“But unfortunately, we’re not going to be able to move forward anymore.”

We had a signed, legal, fully vetted development deal. We’d just identified the writer and showrunner a couple of days before, and everyone in that meeting had been deeply excited to move forward. Their legal team had already combed through the chain of title, months ago. Everything was greenlit. A top-tier producer was attached. The ink was dry.

Then suddenly? A mysterious fee popped up. $65,000 owed from a previous development round—one they “couldn’t afford” now.

It was a bogus “problem,” because if such an issue had existed, they’d have mentioned it during the weeks of back-and-forth during the contract negotiations.

I offered to pay the fee.
Out of my share of the purchase price for the rights.

Pause. You could hear their internal Slack thread go completely still.

“We love the book. But… it’s just not going to happen.”

I asked them to put it in writing. They said, “Sure, " but they never did. Instead, they let the clock run out like a cowardly ex who “needs space” and then dies of ghosting.

They never said Gaza. Never mentioned my post.
They didn’t have to.
The algorithm had already spoken.

And their timing in placing the call within minutes of my post was crystal clear: You spoke out against a genocide we like. You are dead to us now. We can’t murder you physically; if we could, we… might. But we can destroy your life. And we will.

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Welcome to the Risk Matrix

My co-producer on the UCP project is a famous actress. We spoke. She was as stunned as I was by the abrupt about-face from the studio. When I told her they’d called within minutes of my anti-genocide post on X, she seemed to think I was being paranoid. There is no way, she said, they’d be watching my feed on social media that closely or be that worried about what I had to say. They did not have that kind of time or care enough about me for that.

To a sane person, it does seem unlikely busy studio executives would know within an hour that someone they were in business with had posted something anti-genocide on X. But here’s the thing. It’s not the executives watching your socials. It’s a machine. It’s Ai.

Studios, publishers, and corporations now use third-party “reputation risk” software to track and surveil everything you say, post, like, or maybe think near a device with a microphone, in real time. They produce risk assesments in real time, and flag problematic people immediately. These tools aren’t designed to find the truth—they’re designed to find trouble, and by “trouble,” they mean “people who still have empathy.”

Some of the tools in play:

• Palantir – CIA-funded Big Brother in a Patagonia vest. Used by ICE, LAPD, JPMorgan, and yes—media companies.

• NSO Group (Pegasus) – Spyware for when you want to know what someone said in a dream.

• Cellebrite, Candiru, Paragon – Israeli surveillance firms turned corporate customer service nightmares.

• Fama, Ferret, HireVue – “Behavioral screening tools” now used by publishers, agencies, and tech bros to figure out if you're “a vibe risk.”

These tools don’t know nuance. They don’t care about your book deal. They see keywords, emotional tone, political association, and boom—you’re flagged. Not debated. Not contacted. Just quietly dropped from someone’s spreadsheet with a shrug emoji.

And the people who do this to people like me? They don’t necessarily have political views. What they have is an unwavering loyalty to a corporation whose only goal is to please power, so the company can continue to make the most money possible.

It’s worth noting that Comcast, the parent company of Universal Content Productions, is not just a media giant—it’s also a government contractor. Through its subsidiary, Comcast Government Services, it holds multimillion-dollar contracts with the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and other federal agencies to provide critical telecommunications infrastructure. Which raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: What incentive does a government contractor have to platform anti-genocide voices that might criticize the very governments it profits from? When your parent company is in business with the defense infrastructure of the United States, silencing “controversial” artists isn't just risk management—it may also be brand alignment.

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It Didn't Stop With TV

After UCP vanished, I submitted a new novel—Ghostwritten—under a pen name, to new agents. Literary, twisty, juicy. Probably one of the best things I’ve ever written. Agents loved it. Said it was brilliant. One called it “this generation’s Secret History.” I finally thought, Okay, maybe we’re back.

And then, once I had to reveal my actual name for the contracts or agreements to work together… nothing.

Every time we got close to signing, someone got cold feet.

“I just don’t think I can take this on right now.”
“There’s something tricky about placement.”

Translation: We Googled you. You were sad on the wrong day.

No one said my name.
No one had to.

Happily, I found a small, brave and great publisher for the book by submitting it myself, but the advances paid by brave, small publishers are minuscule, not enough to live on for two months, much less a year.

This is how fascism blacklists now.

Through smiling, silent, indirect starvation.

Just like Gaza.

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Ask Terry Moran

Veteran journalist Terry Moran told the truth recently:

“Stephen Miller is a world-class hater.”

Factually accurate. Documented. Widely understood. Miller is demonstrably, objectively a white supremacist who believes in the great replacement theory and whose policies target brown and black people. Period.

ABC didn’t disagree. They just… began gently yeeting him off the air. Fewer appearances. Less visibility. Then gone.

Same pattern. Different byline.

We are in an era of corporate news and entertainment media support for racism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia. If you dare to speak the truth in the landscape like this, you will be let go, isolated, and quietly erased.

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The System Doesn’t Want Nuance. It Wants Silence.

Here’s what I need people to understand:

I’m not “pro-Palestinian.”
I’m not “anti-Israel.”
I’m anti-genocide.
I’m anti-terrorism.
I’m anti-killing innocent people, which, apparently, is a “political stance” now.

I was sickened by the Hamas bombing of civilians in an Israeli mall.
And I was horrified by the mass killing of civilians in Israel’s military response.

Not as a pundit. As a mother. As a human being.

I’m also of Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish descent. My great-great-grandfather helped found the first synagogue in New Orleans.

But none of that mattered.

One sad, honest tweet, and suddenly I was labeled “pro-Palestinian” and “antisemitic.” And my deal? Dead.

That’s how it works now.
You’re not debated.
You’re deleted.

Your dismissal is framed as some other issue, so that you are gaslighted into wondering if you’re good enough. But here’s the secret: You were so good, so effective, so powerful, that they were afraid of you persuading people in ways they did not want people persuaded.

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The Consequences Are Not Theoretical

This isn’t just about creative freedom. It’s about basic survival.

Since the studio pulled the deal and the agents vanished, work has almost dried up completely. I’m not being poetic. I am experiencing housing insecurity. I am in deep financial shit. I do not have enough income to live.

I’m applying for day jobs—school districts, comms roles, nonprofit gigs—but here’s the issue: the same tech flagging me in publishing is used by LinkedIn, HR departments, and corporate background screeners.

They see a flag. They move on.

I’m not just unbookable.
I’m unhirable—thanks to one tweet, my age, and a system that quietly destroys people of conscience who think out loud during times that require obedience, conformity, and silence.

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This Is Modern McCarthyism—But Worse

What’s happening isn’t unique. It’s not limited to TV or writers or people with “platforms.” This is systemic.

This is modern McCarthyism—but worse.

Back then, at least you knew when you were blacklisted. There were lists. Accusations. You could confirm it. You could name it.

Now? You just stop getting calls.
You’re told you didn’t make the cut.
You’re not “flagged”—you’re just somehow not quite right anymore.

And since this is corporate censorship, not governmental, no one has to admit anything. There’s no paper trail. No hearings. Just a lot of silence followed by a lot of very real suffering.

That’s why I’ve started looking at life somewhere else.
For real.
I’m thinking of leaving the country permanently.
I want to live in a place where storytelling isn’t policed by keyword flagging. Where sadness over dead children doesn’t make you unfit for employment.

I’ve been looking at a certain country that’s making great TV these days. Much more affordable than here.

Maybe they still believe in writers who tell the truth before it becomes marketable.

Maybe there is still a place in the world where I can be free and have a home.

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✊ If You Felt This

If you’ve been flagged, ghosted, quietly erased, or told to shut up for the sake of your “opportunities”—you’re not alone.

If this essay spoke to you:

👉 Subscribe. It helps me build an audience no algorithm can bury. You can subscribe to this newsletter and also to my new Dirty Girls Social Club newsletter.
👉 Share it. Email it. Text it. Pass it to someone who needs to see the big picture.
👉 Pay if you can. I’m outside the machine now, and trying to survive. Paid subscriptions = food, shelter, writing.
👉 Buy my new novel, Where Rabbits Gathered. It’s the story I was born to tell. A multigenerational saga about colonization, survival, joy, and women who refuse to disappear. If you liked this piece, you will love the book.

I’m not going to disappear.
But I’m not going to pretend this isn’t happening either.

Thank you for reading.
Thank you for helping me stay visible.
Thank you for resisting.

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📚 Buy Where Rabbits Gathered here