‘American Horror Story’: Billy Eichner Not Returning for Season 9

After two consecutive seasons of starring in the hit FX horror anthology series, Billy Eichner says that he will not be returning for American Horror Story Season 9.

Eichner announced the news in late May when responding to a fan praising his work on the series, revealing that his absence from the upcoming season, 1984, wasn’t able to fit in with his busy schedule.

“Thank you! I can’t do AHS this year but boy oh boy I had a blast and I love all those crazy kids a lot,” he wrote.

Eichner had joined the cast of American Horror Story for the FX anthology’s seventh installment in 2017, portraying Harrison Wilton in Cult. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly at the time, Eichner had revealed that starring on the series was never a part of his plan, but rather that series creator Ryan Murphy offered him a part.

“I did not audition,” he said. “Ryan offered me the part. I met him a few years ago at one of those pre-Emmy parties.”

Eichner, however, was not done after just a single season, and he returned to the series for Season 8’s Apocalypse, a crossover of Season 1’s Murder House and Season 3’s Coven. For the installment, he took on the dual roles of television executive and Coco St. Pierre Vanderbilt’s ex-boyfriends Brock and nuclear scientist Mutt Nutter.

News of Eichner’s absence from the upcoming season comes just two months after his AHS co-star Evan Peters revealed that he was going to “sit a season out.” Peters has starred on the critically acclaimed drama since its inception, oftentimes taking on multiple roles at once.

Speaking to GQ Style last year, Peters had explained that the series can be “exhausting” and “mentally draining.”

“It’s just exhausting. It’s really mentally draining, and you don’t want to go to those places ever in your life,” he told the magazine. “And so you have to go there for the scenes, and it ends up integrating it somehow into your life. You’re in traffic and you find yourself screaming and you’re like, ‘What the hell? This isn’t who I am.’”

Although the fate of other members of the cast remains up in the air, it has been confirmed that Emma Roberts will return in an unknown role. She will star opposite AHS newcomer Olympic medalist Gus Kenworthy, who will portray Robert’s onscreen love interest.

As was teased in the first clip for the season, American Horror Story: 1984 will invoke themes from that decade, notably slasher horror films, such as Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, which was released in 1980.

American Horror Story: 1984 will premiere Wednesday, September 18 at 9 p.m. ET on FX.