Pam Grier Is Too Committed to Bless This Mess for L Word Reboot 

The internet blew up last week when it was announced that the L Word reboot was moving forward with an eight-episode season to air toward the end of 2019. Confirmation that the reboot was a go with original cast members Jennifer Beals, Leisha Hailey, and Katherine Moennig on board, came during the Television Critics Association's winter press tour.

Soon after, Sarah Shahi announced at the TCAs that she'd be a part of the series. Now it looks as though Beals's Bette won't have her big sister Kit to lean on, considering that Pam Grier, the legendary actress who played her, announced that she won't be a part of The L Word because of her series Bless This Mess.

"There's been no L Word because I'm here [with Bless This Mess]. I can't leave," Grier said at the TCAs on Tuesday, according to Deadline.

Grier, the star of films including Foxy Brown in the '70s and Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown in the '90s, was at the TCAs to promote Bless This Mess, an ABC comedy that stars Lake Bell and Dax Shepard as newlyweds who move from the big city to rural Nebraska.

Shortly after the L Word reboot was confirmed (it was first announced in 2017), Shahi, who played Carmen, the woman who nearly got Moennig's Shane all the way to the altar in the third season, announced she would return to The L Word despite her role on the Showtime series City on a Hill, which stars Kevin Bacon.

"[The L Word] was my first big gig. And to be a part of that, I don't think I ever really knew what I was stepping into until after and I started speaking with women and getting letters," Shahi said. "Just the amount of information that was sent my way about how impactful it was, it put me on this thing where it's like, everything I want to do from now on, I want it to have meaning and I want it to touch people."

"That was something I tried to do in Reverie and in Person of Interest and it's something I'm going to do in City on a Hill. To be a part of that sisterhood was so momentous for me. I'm more than honored that I can go back and re-create it," she added.

L Word creator Ilene Chaiken (Empire) will executive-produce the reboot along with the new show's showrunner, playwright and screenwriter Marja Lewis Ryan (The Four-Faced Liar). Beals, Hailey, and Moennig will also executive-produce the series. The L Word ran for six seasons between 2004 and 2009.