Trans Actress Jen Richards Joins Nashville Season 5

It looked like it was the end for Nashville earlier this year. Despite having a devoted following, US network ABC decided to drop it following Season 4. However, cable network CMT (formerly Country Music Television) soon stepped forward to say it wanted to keep the show alive and so commissioned Season 5.

The new season now has some extra LGBT interest, as it’s been announced that trans actress Jen Richards has joined the cast. She will play the recurring role of ‘Allyson Del Lago, a tough but understanding physical therapist who helps a series regular through one of their most difficult challenges. This marks CMT’s first transgender character and the first out transgender actor on the network’. It certainly sounds like a good fit for the Mississippi born country music fan.

Richards is a trans advocate and activist, the co-writer/star/producer of the Emmy-nominated series Her Story; co-producer of the upcoming docu-series More Than T, and writer of its accompanying Trans 102 series; as well as a 2016 Outfest Screenwriting Fellow for her feature script Any Given Week. She will also appear in several upcoming projects, including CBS’s Doubt.

She will join the likes of Connie Britton as Rayna Jaymes, Hayden Panettiere as Juliette Barnes, Clare Bowen as Scarlett O’Connor, and Chris Carmack as Will Lexington, when Season 5 kicks off. It starts in the US with a two-hour premiere on January 5th on CMT.