‘Sons of Anarchy’ Creator and Star Kurt Sutter Reveals ‘One Is The Loneliest Number’ Throwback Amid FX Ousting

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter shared a throwback photo on Instagram Friday, showing him as the character he played on his fan-favorite series. The post came a few weeks after FX fired Sutter from the SOA spin-off series Mayans M.C., reportedly after the network received “multiple complaints” about his behavior. On Nov. 5, FX picked up the show for a third season, the first without Sutter’s involvement at all.

The new Instagram post showed Sutter as Otto Delaney, a character he played in 20 episodes of Sons of Anarchy, and flipping off the camera with his middle finger.

“One is the loneliest number,” Sutter wrote in the caption, adding the hashtags “Otto Delaney,” “Sons of Anarchy” and “the long game.”

“Otto! The best character on Sons,” one fan wrote in the comments section.

“Prayin for you bro, keep your head up,” another wrote.

“Just started watching SOA again tonight. Awesome show dude! Time to relive the past,” another fan chimed in.

Back on Oct. 18, FX and Disney, the network’s new parent company, fired Sutter from Mayans M.C. after receiving “multiple complaints” about his behavior. Sutter later sent a memo to cast and crew, writing he already “removed myself quite a bit this season, allowing others to take a bigger role in producing the show,” and said the philosophy “backfired.”

According to Sutter, this was “Not the way I wanted to end my 18-year relationship with FX. At least being fired for being an abrasive d– is on brand.”

In an interview with Deadline late last month, Sutter suggested he was pressured to do another show centered on a motorcycle club set in the Sons of Anarchy world because FX wanted to capitalize on the intellectual property.

“I did not want to come back and do another MC show. Besides seeming like an admission of only possessing a single creative skill set, I felt like I’d told all the stories I had in that world,” Sutter told the site. “But FX was eager to capitalize on the IP and I had an interesting way into the world, so before I knew it, we were moving forward. I knew that a white guy shouldn’t be the voice of a Latin culture drama. So I brought on Elgin [James] and saw my primary creative responsibility as handling the transition from the SOA mythology to the Mayans mythology.”

Sutter had planned to hand the creative reins of Mayans M.C. over to co-creator Elgin James during Season 2. He planned to stay on as an executive producer for future seasons, but that will not be the case now. James will serve as sole showrunner on Season 3 in 2020.

“We’re happy to continue telling the story of Mayans M.C. with our partners at Fox 21 and excited that Elgin James has earned the opportunity to become the series’ showrunner,” Nick Grad, President, Original Programming, FX Entertainment, said on Nov. 5. “Kurt Sutter identified and chose Elgin as his partner on the show from the outset and Elgin has been instrumental to the success of the series, leveraging his experience and creative vision to make Mayans M.C. with this incredible cast, crew and creative team.”

Sutter has long discussed doing a SOA prequel titled First 9, but Sutter told Deadline that idea is on the backburner for the foreseeable future.

Photo credit: Rich Polk/Getty Images for IMDb