‘WORST TIME OF OUR LIVES’

Dad Died of COVID After ‘American Horror Story’ Set Ignored Safety: Lawsuit

Paul Woodward contracted the virus that killed him while working on the show in 2021, his family’s suit claims.

A man who was part of the crew working on the TV show American Horror Story contracted COVID and died after safety protocols were ignored on set, his family claim in a lawsuit. The relatives of Paul Woodward—who worked as a van driver on the crew during a spring 2021 shoot in Provincetown, Massachusetts—say he wasn’t given a plexiglass divider for his vehicle and that other pandemic management measures were ignored. After Woodward tested negative on set, his son took him to the hospital, where he tested positive. Woodward then died about five weeks later. “He passed away on the morning of our 25th anniversary,” his wife, Patricia Woodward, told NBC10 Boston. “So that day instead of going out to dinner or having champagne, I had to go to the funeral home and look for a casket for him.” The suit names 20th Century Fox, Ryan Murphy Productions, and The Walt Disney Company as the defendants. “We just want some awareness to be made of the situation so something like this doesn’t have to happen again to anybody else, because this has certainly been the worst time of our lives,” Woodward’s son, Redmond, said.