Selena Gomez deleted a reel from her Instagram after being criticized for crossing the SAG-AFTRA picket line by posting a promotional video for her TV show Only Murders in the Building, which many feel violates the guild’s strike rules.
On Tuesday (the same day that the latest episode of Only Murders in the Building dropped), Gomez posted a video that appears to have been taken on the set of Only Murders in the Building, which is airing its third season on Hulu. At one point, Gomez is speaking to someone off-camera.
“Missing and wanting @onlymurdershulu,” she wrote.
It’s the kind of social media video that nobody would blink an eye at during a regular TV season where actors and writers aren’t on strike.
However, the actors’ union has been on strike since July after negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) came to a halt; the AMPTP has yet to return to the table to negotiate with SAG, although it met with the WGA earlier in August.
SAG strike rules explicitly prohibit actors from promoting their work in any capacity, including on social media. While some productions and smaller studios have gotten an Interim Agreement from SAG, Only Murders in the Building is not one of them. The streaming series, which is now in its third season and runs on Hulu, is owned by parent company Disney—one of the studios represented by the AMPTP.
As the post remained live on Instagram, the comments section was flooded with commenters asking her to delete the video, criticizing her for posting it, calling her a scab, and accusing her of crossing the picket line.
@speedsreacts Can someone explain what is happening ? Whatever it is im sure selena would know or else she wouldnt have posted it right?
♬ original sound – Selena Gomez ☻
There was also some speculation that Gomez would show up on the picket line soon, similar to how Arrow star Stephen Amell made a very public appearance on the SAG picket line shortly after being dragged for criticizing the strike. But some of Gomez’s fans tried to argue that because Gomez didn’t tell people to watch Only Murders in the Building in the video, it wasn’t actually a violation.
By Wednesday, the post was down without explanation. According to screenshots of the Instagram post, Gomez—who has one of the world’s most popular Instagram accounts with over 428 million followers—received over 1.1 million likes in the 15 hours the post was live.
