Actress Hayley Marie Norman is suing ‘Mixed-ish’ creators for supposedly stealing her concepts. Norman describes her concept for her show as, “follows the journey of a mixed-race female protagonist as she grapples with her biracial identity while living in the suburbs surrounded by both sides of her African American and Caucasian families”. Norman says she and her manager, Brain Dobbins pitched her idea to Netflix, HBO, Starz, Hulu, Showtime, Amazon, and ‘Black-ish’ Creators (Tracee Ellis Ross, Kenya Barris) all saying they were uninterested. 

Norman then goes on to say that the next month she saw that Ross was in production on the ‘Black-ish’ prequel. Michael Plonsker, Norma’s attorney, said this about the case, “The premise is identical, its portrayal is identical, its setting is identical, and its tone is identical,” and “Moreover, literally everyone involved in the ‘creative’ and ‘production’ aspect of ‘Mixed-ish’ was either directly or indirectly involved with Norman and the development of Norman’s Series — from Big Breakfast and Ross to Artists First and Dobbins, to Barris who ostensibly passed on Norman’s Series after being presented with it, and to ABC, which knowingly proceeded with airing a series it knew was the result of a theft and rip off perpetrated by the above-mentioned parties.”