Ryan Murphy Confirms ‘American Horror Story: Cult’ Mass Shooting Scene to Be Edited

During the panel at Saturday’s New Yorker Festival, film and television creator Ryan Murphy revealed that an upcoming episode of his FX anthology series, American Horror Story: Cult will be recut following the mass shooting in Las Vegas.

TV Line reports that Murphy chose to re-edit the Oct. 10 episode, “Mid-Western Assassin,” which features a massacre similar to the events that took place in Las Vegas on Oct. 1 that left 58 people dead, 500 more injured.

“I believe I have the right to air it, but I also believe in victims’ rights,” Murphy said at the festival. “I believe that now is probably not the week to have something explosive or incendiary in the culture, because someone who was affected might watch that, and it could trigger something or make them feel upset. So our decision was to re-edit it, and I felt that that was the right move.”

While the shooting hasn’t been entirely cut, the scene will be less graphic after new edits are put in, ensuring that the violence happens off-screen.

“Nobody ever talks about victims’ rights. That’s sort of a weird emotional discussion that’s never bridged,” he added as reported by the Hollywood Reporter. “But I felt great sympathy for people who were affected, certainly, and family members and loved ones and people who are upset about the way the world is.”

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