Smallscreen News

Jennifer Esposito takes on CBS in 'Blue Bloods' labor dispute

By April MacIntyre Oct 22, 2012, 13:56 GMT

Jennifer Esposito - Ziegfeld Theater - New York City, NY, USA © Marco Sagliocco / PR Photos

The CBS seried "Blue Bloods" looks to be losing Jennifer Esposito, who is being written out of the series based on a medical condition.

The New York Post reports the actress was written out of hit CBS police series after Esposito and her producers were at loggerheads over film scheduling and work load.

The Post reported that Jennifer collapsed on the set in August, complaining that producers were “working her too hard.”

The fight was taken online in a war of words, reported by The Post.

One source said, “She said she was being worked too hard and was escorted to her trailer and filming was halted. The crew was forced to come back to finish the scene on a Saturday a few weeks later, and that was when Jennifer discovered from the script they were writing her off the show.”

Esposito is cast as Detective Jackie Curatola.

She used Twitter to tell her side of the story, that celiac disease caused her to collapsed when worked to hard.

She wrote, “CBS. . . PUT me on unpaid leave and has blocked me from working anywhere else after my doc said u needed a reduced schedule due to celiac . . . CBS didn’t listen to my doc and I collapsed on set. Which everyone saw! After a week off my doc said I could return to work but CBS implied that I was NOT truly ill and this was a scheme to get a raise!”

“Jennifer has informed us that she is only available to work on a very limited part-time schedule,” CBS TV Studios said in a statement to the Post. “As a result, she’s unable to perform the demands of her role and we regretfully had to put her character on a leave of absence . . . We hope that she will be able to return at some point in the future.”

Esposito chronicles her journey of learning about Celiac disease in great detail on her website: "I read everything I could about health and nutrition.  I even started eating macrobiotic and vegan at one point.  So I was aware of the importance of food and health being related. Why had I never even heard of this, celiac disease??? I immediately went on the internet and what I found kept me glued to the couch for hours. I read that I had an auto immune disease and what was happening to my body when I ate gluten.  The entire day and the next  I scoured the internet for “how to treat” and “what to do next”. For what little I did find, it all said the same thing – eat gluten free. What the hell did that mean?! I couldn’t comprehend in my brain that the left over pasta in my refrigerator at the moment was now done. Forever."