Breaking the Silence with Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez reveals the shocking reasons Hollywood refused to sign on to a film adaptation of The Dirty Girls Social Club produced by Tyler Perry, even though he was the No. 1 movie producer in the industry, and the team had an incredible Oscar-winning screenwriter on board.

In this episode, I take you through the development deal I had for my bestselling novel, The Dirty Girls Social Club, with NBC. Though the network itself did nothing wrong, the production company I aligned myself with, Encanto, made some questionable choices (to say it politely). Among their choices? To remove all Afro-Latino and Black British characters because, according to the producer Ann Lopez (George's then-wife), "No one wants to see black people on TV." I objected, loudly, and got punished by the Hollywood establishment for daring to take on one of the most powerful Latino power couples in the industry.

After her bestselling novel fails to get produced at Columbia Pictures because the studio could not see past their own stereotypes of Latinas, DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB author finds things are even worse in the next development deal her novel gets, at Lifetime Television. This episode details the breathtakingly racist reasons the series never got made with the network.

After Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's debut novel, THE DIRTY GIRLS SOCIAL CLUB, became a huge bestseller, the author got lots of interest from Hollywood studios to adapt it to the screen. This episode chronicles what happened with the first development deal, at Columbia Pictures, and talks about the well-intentioned but still very racist reason it did not make it to production.

In this debut episode of Breaking the Silence, I take you back to where it all began. From my roots as a jazz saxophone student at Berklee College of Music, to my shift to journalist, working on staff at the Boston Globe and LA Times, to my rise as a bestselling novelist, this episode explores the experiences that shaped my worldview and my journey as a creative person attempting to break barriers in industries that often don't know what the hell to make of someone like me, who doesn't fit anyone's preconceived notions of what I'm supposed to be. I share my backstory—growing up as the daughter of a native New Mexican mother and a Cuban exile father, navigating life as one of the few female students at Berklee College of Music in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the whistleblowing article I wrote about the college that was publishing in The Boston Globe and changed my life, my time at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, my career as a staff writer for the Boston Globe and LA Times, and, finally, why I left journalism to write novels because fiction felt like the only place I could tell the truth without being punished. I talk about the inspiration behind my breakout hit, The Dirty Girls Social Club. The novel’s success was undeniable, becoming a cultural phenomenon and paving the way for my entry into the glamorous, yet treacherous, world of Hollywood. The episode ends on a cliffhanger as I recount landing my first major film development deal with Columbia Pictures, Jennifer Lopez, and the legendary Laura Ziskin. It was a moment filled with hope, ambition, and the promise of breaking new ground. But Hollywood had other plans. Tune in to uncover the untold story of what it took to get here and what was waiting just around the corner. Subscribe, like, and comment to join the conversation—this is just the beginning. 🎙️✨ #BreakingTheSilence #LatinaCreators #HollywoodExposed #DirtyGirlsSocialClub