The General Hospital Controversy Involving Ingo Rademacher Just Got Messier

Ingo Rademacher still has a bone to pick with ABC. The actor, who played Jasper "Jax" Jacks in the long-running daytime soap opera "General Hospital" for almost 25 years, received the boot in November following his refusal to get vaccinated after production had enforced a vaccine mandate, per Entertainment Weekly.

Rademacher was also recently under fire for a transphobic tweet he had reposted on his Instagram story, where the U.S. assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine was misgendered. He was then publicly slammed by his co-stars Nancy Lee Grahn and Cassandra James, who is transgender. While he had issued an apology, he was eventually let go and got written off the show.

"I was on the show for 25 years. They were like my family, a lot of the people there. I was really hoping that I could play Jax for another 10 or 25 years. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen, obviously," he said in a video on Instagram. "Thank you so much for supporting me for 25 years... I will have more news later on, but for now, just wanted to thank all of you amazing fans out there." It was unclear what type of news he would share with his fans, but it looks like it has something to do with his unceremonious exit from "General Hospital."

While Ingo Rademacher showed a blatant disregard for ABC's vaccine mandate, he is now suing the network for instituting one in the first place. The actor, who had initially asked for a religious exemption from the mandate that got then rejected, said that the rule was not constitutional and equated to discrimination on the basis of religion, per Variety.

"I am entitled to a religious exemption against mandatory vaccination for COVID-19 on the basis of my deeply and sincerely held moral belief that my body is endowed by my creator with natural processes to protect me and that its natural integrity cannot ethically be violated by the administration of artificially created copies of genetic material, foreign to nature and experimental," he actor wrote in an email addressed to HR.

ABC has yet to respond, but this isn't the first time "General Hospital" had fired an actor for refusing to get vaccinated; they let go of Steve Burton in November for the same reason. In his Instagram, Rademacher expressed his frustration about vaccine mandates because he believes that getting jabbed should be a choice. "If you want to go get the vaccine, get the vaccine. If you think it's going to protect you, that's great. But you should be able to make that choice," he said. "I think we all need to fight this... You already know that I do not agree with corporations ever, ever being able to mandate a vaccine to keep your job, to keep your livelihood...that's coercion."