Former “General Hospital” actor Ingo Rademacher — who was fired in 2021 after 25 years with the show for opposing the network’s directive to be vaccinated against the coronavirus — says the fallout from his job loss has meant more than just leaving his longtime role in a popular daytime television show.
The 51-year-old Rademacher alleges in his Los Angeles Superior Court that ABC wrongfully denied him a religious exemption and used the employee mandatory vaccination policy as an excuse to fire him. The company made it look like they wanted him to stay, but claimed they could not accommodate him in order to disguise that he was being terminated for other reasons, including his support for former President Trump, the actor further alleges.
ABC lawyers have filed a motion arguing Rademacher’s case should be dismissed for a lack of triable issues in the case and say his religious conviction claims were suspect.
But in a sworn declaration submitted Thursday in opposition to ABC’s dismissal motion, Rademacher says his religious convictions are real and that the impacts of the firing on his life have been sweeping. Rademacher portrayed the character of tycoon Jasper “Jax” Jacks.
“ABC’s decision to fire me and recast the role of Jax due to my political views — which it then tried to cover up by claiming that it could not accommodate my religious objection to vaccination — has had a devastating effect on my life,” Rademacher says. “I was unable to find work on other television shows and, under financial distress, had to move my family from California to Florida.”
Rademacher says he also had to leave the part-time lifeguard job with Los Angeles County, which, unlike the network, had granted him a religious exemption from taking the vaccination. He also says his wife had to go back to work and that he is now the primary caretaker for the couple’s three children.
The actor said the atmosphere on the set was positive until late 2020, a period that included some of the worst days of the pandemic as well as the presidential campaign. Rademacher says the show’s producer, Frank Valentini, was a liberal and supported Joe Biden.
“I don’t consider myself conservative or liberal,” Rademacher says. “I care about issues, especially the environment, privacy rights and the freedom of speech. I supported the last presidential administration and spoke about some of the good things I thought former President Trump did.”
Rademacher says he did not know until after he filed his lawsuit in December 2021 that “ABC/Disney got rid of me because Frank and another producer, Dominick Nuzzi, did not like what I was saying about Trump and mandatory COVID vaccination policies.”
Valentini, who was monitoring Rademacher’ social media postings for political commentary, “disagreed with my views and decided to get rid of me and recast the role of Jax. I was shocked and distraught when I learned these facts,” Rademacher says.
Rademacher says he has not taken any vaccines as an adult.
“My objection to vaccination is based on my belief that injecting myself with a substance, foreign to nature, that might harm me or affect the immune system that God gave me for good or bad is contrary to God’s will,” according to Rademacher. The actor further says he does “not belong to an organized church. I do not attend church services. I believe in a higher power, God, and have a direct relationship with him.”
In their dismissal motion, ABC attorneys say the network’s vaccine policy was the product of an extensive, deliberative process at network parent company Disney, where senior leaders and experts in medicine, infectious disease and infection control were part of the discussions.
The vaccination rule required applicable employees to be vaccinated by Nov. 1, 2021, unless they qualified for a religious or medical exemption, which would be considered on a case-by-case basis, the ABC lawyers further state in their court papers.
In Rademacher’s case, in July 2021 Chris Van Etten, the co-head show writer, was considering long-term story plans and identified the plaintiff’s “Jax” character as among those considered for elimination from the daytime series, ABC attorneys state in their court papers.
Although Rademacher filed a request for a religious exemption to the policy in October 2021, during a deposition he admitted that the statements in his written request were either irrelevant or made really no difference to his supposed religious belief, according to the ABC attorneys’ court papers.
A hearing on ABC’s dismissal motion is scheduled March 30 before Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch.