In the early seasons of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on Nickelodeon, Orange Is the New Black actor Jason Biggs could be heard voicing lead turtle Leonardo. He was ultimately replaced by Seth Green on the series, and Biggs finally revealed that his offensive tweets resulted in the loss of his TMNT gig. Here's how Biggs described the situation:
I was let go from a job. It was for real. I'm fine with it now, but I think it really fucked me up. And for awhile, initially, I didn't think I did anything wrong ... but the truth of the matter is, I fucking did it ... it fucked me up... It was enough to get a lot of people calling Nickelodeon ... I knew they weren't thrilled with them. That should've been enough. It wasn't. I tweeted more. I doubled down, and they were like, 'We can't do this anymore. Our phone is literally ringing off the hook.'
Yes, Jason Biggs lost his job on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when his social media activity was offensive enough to enough people that there were many calls to Nickelodeon to protest his involvement with the show. According Biggs on Dax Shepard's The Armchair Expert podcast, he was aware that Nickelodeon wasn't exactly overjoyed at the negative attention, but that wasn't enough for him to stop the volatile tweets, and he lost that job.
In case you weren't aware of the tweets that got Jason Biggs fired back in 2014 after only two seasons of the show that premiered in 2012, let's just say that there didn't seem to be any topic too controversial for Biggs to fire off a "joke" tweet (or several). Among those topics were a dead Bachelorette contestant, a plane crash, the Pope, politician Paul Ryan's wife, women's basketball, and many more.
All things considered, it's not too shocking that a network full of kids' programming would get calls about somebody employed there who fired off tweets of this nature, especially given how Jason Biggs then had the tendency to double down on his controversial tweets and lash out at people who took issue with what he had to say.
It cost Jason Biggs a job on a beloved show, and Biggs now says that although it "traumatized" him, it "was a really good thing" that helped him realize he needed to make a change in how he handled himself and his career. Biggs also revealed part of what led to his behavior all those years ago:
I got in trouble [on Twitter] a lot. And I took the stance for a long time of, like, 'whatever, fuck you, I'm not doing anything wrong.' And mind you, this sort of coincided with my last years of drinking. My brain was pickled, and I definitely had a sort of combative side to me that I think the booze and drugs obviously.
Jason Biggs has since gotten sober, and he held onto a job on Orange Is the New Black for years before his character was written out. Additionally, he appeared on The Good Wife, spinoff The Good Fight, I Like You Just the Way I Am, among others. Nowadays, Biggs doesn't actually use Twitter all that much and is more active on Instagram.
Only time will tell if he continues to rebound his career on the small screen. For some upcoming viewing options on TV, swing by our midseason premiere guide.
