When we finished shooting the two initial episodes, Rob began shopping them around to networks, and a miracle happened: FX offered to shoot a “real” pilot for the show. And they were going to PAY US. What?!

All of a sudden we were on an actual set, with for-real makeup artists and trailers and someone else to hold the boom. Everyone at the network seemed excited, but we still had trouble believing that all of this would actually pan out. We all knew what it was like to get cast in a part only to end up on the cutting room floor, or have the project never see the light of day at all. We knew what it was like to think everything was about to change when really the only thing that was going to happen was that we were about to be drop-kicked back to square one, and we were all sick and tired of that happening.

At one point, one of the guys (I’m pretty sure it was Glenn, but I could be wrong) called a meeting in Rob’s trailer — no secondary cast members, no execs…just the four of us. The question on the table: “What if the network wants to pick up some of us, but not all of us?” I specifically remember someone — again, I think it was Glenn — saying that I had nothing to worry about, because I was “the pretty girl” (not to mention the only girl) and that Rob was clearly fine because he was the showrunner, but that he was scared that he and Charlie might be replaceable.

And so this is what we did, sitting there in Rob’s trailer with paper plates of scrambled eggs from craft services balanced on our laps: we agreed, together, that the network would have to take all four of us…or none of us. We had been in this thing together for over a year now, and we simply wouldn’t allow them to split us up. We shook hands, and headed back to set.

Around that time, my relationship with Rob began to unravel — and I started to sense that I was on unsteady footing, despite our “all for one” pact. One day I walked into the office that FX had set up for the show, and was surprised to find three desks: one for Rob, one for Glenn, and one for Charlie. They’d all been made executive producers.

Very quickly — almost overnight — I went from being at the center of the project to standing on the periphery. I blamed my age; I blamed my inexperience; I blamed what I saw as my lack of talent…but the fact is — even though at the time I lacked the words or the conviction to say it — that to the people in charge, I was nothing more than another blonde actress. FX was a cigar-smoking, whiskey-drinking old boys’ club, and I was welcome when I was the girlfriend of the creator — but once I wasn’t, my role in creating their new pet project was forgotten.

I said nothing, not even to Rob. I was terrified of losing my job, and it seemed to me that the best course of action was to sit down, shut up, and be grateful for what I had. I didn’t want to ask why I hadn’t been made a producer — why, in fact, I hadn’t even been included in the conversation — because the answer was obvious: Rob, Glenn and Charlie (and the agents, managers, and execs that they had started going out for boys’ nights with) were The Guys — the masters of this little universe that they’d created — and me? I was just a girl — and a replaceable one, at that.

The pilot wrapped, and shortly afterwards I ended my relationship with Rob. During one of our break-up conversations, he told me in no uncertain terms that if I did not stay in the relationship, I would be off the show. I broke up with him anyway, and moved into the house that we had been planning to share all by myself.