Nominated for eight Prime Time Emmy Awards, “Empire” was created by Lee Daniels and Danny Strong and starred Terrence Howard as a powerful music mogul. When the show was first announced, actor and singer Macy Gray was a high-profile addition to the cast and filmed all of her scenes for the debut episode. According to Daniels, though, that episode was sent to network executives for notes ahead of airing, and while they gave him plenty of creative freedom, there was one major change they demanded.

“There was a character that I wrote into the original pilot who was Hakeem’s love interest, a mother figure, [played by] Macy Gray,” Daniels told The Hollywood Reporter years later. As Daniels recounted, the network wanted the character removed. “There was a love scene, and they said, ‘This is too much.'” Apparently, the steamy story didn’t sit well with the network executives and their incessant need to meddle, and Gray’s character was gone. The fact that Gray was never brought back, however, suggests that they had more objections than a simple sex scene. 

Whether Gray was intended to be a recurring regular or even a main character isn’t known, but her presence would have probably added a lot to the series. In addition to a new love interest for actor Bysheer Gray (no relation to Macy), she would have added a powerful real-life singer to the ensemble.