CBS, Sony Say Lawsuit by Former ‘Young and the Restless’ Star Victoria Rowell Is 'Patently Absurd'

Victoria Rowell

CBS and Sony Pictures Television have filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit by former The Young and the Restless star Victoria Rowell (Drucilla Winters), who claims that she wasn't re-hired in retaliation for her “public and private complaints regarding the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera on the show.” She further claims that she also attempted to join Y&R’s sister soap The Bold and the Beautiful, but was denied.

In the new legal papers, filed in U.S. district court in California on Wednesday, the two companies not only re-assert their earlier contention that casting decisions are protected by the First Amendment — they say that Rowell never actually applied or auditioned for a role on Y&R after her 2007 departure from the soap opera.

“Instead, she alleges she asked Defendants on several occasions if they would create a new position that she played, Drucilla Winters, back into the Y&R story line. Specifically, Plaintiff wanted to Defendants to create a story line for Drucilla Winters, and to cast Plaintiff in the role,” the filing reads. “Defendants never agreed to do so.”

As for the potential Bold and the Beautiful role that Rowell alleges her agent submitted her for in 2013, the filing reads, “that role never actually made it on the show. Plaintiff never applied for any other role on B&B.”

“This lawsuit is nothing more than a blatant attempt by Plaintiff to force her way back onto a daytime television soap opera after she voluntarily resigned from her role in 2007,” CBS and Sony say in the papers.

Watch Victoria Rowell's February press conference where she first announced the lawsuit below.