Angelica Ross Reveals Pose Isn’t Quite Ready to Say Good-bye to Candy After All

Photo: Macall Polay/FX

We could never keep a girl like Candy down — and Angelica Ross has confirmed that Pose season three is no exception. Fans of the beloved, boundary-pushing FX series were shocked when Candy died at the hands of a john midway through season two, and while we’ve seen the actress lighting up another Ryan Murphy hit, American Horror Story: 1984, in the time since, Ross was thrilled to report last night at the premiere of Pose’s final season that “the audience is going to get everything they’re looking for out of this third season — especially a little bit more Candy!” Looking gaggy and glittery in a silver sheer ensemble, Ross attended the April 29 premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center alongside the rest of series’ cast and creatives, including Mj Rodriguez, Billy Porter, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore, Janet Mock, Steven Canals, and Ryan Murphy. Following strict social-distance and testing protocols for the rare in-person event, Ross and others were just happy to be there.

“Listen, I wasn’t sure that I was gonna be able to make it because I was working, filming the current season of American Horror Story,” she revealed. But Murphy let her off for the night. “He has the power to do that! And so here I am, and honestly I wouldn’t want to miss this for the world.”

Teasing what’s to come for Candy — whom Mock herself lamented before the premiere they killed off too soon — Ross said that she appears with Jackson, Moore, and others in episode three, which flashes back to the House of Abundance’s genesis and early days.

“It goes into Elektra’s backstory, but you get to see us all in our baby, baby trans state,” Ross said. “Even Indya’s character, Angel, is just so cute as a young’n. So I think the audience is going to be pleasantly surprised.”

Ross added that she herself was surprised to get the chance to play Candy again. She’s previously said how devastated she was to part with the role, but she had to leave it all on the ballroom floor lip-syncing to her “Never Knew Love Like This Before” swan song and look ahead to the next gig. Then, she got the call to come back.

“I was filming American Horror Story, and my agents call me, and they’re like, ‘So, Angelica, guess what? You’re going back to Pose!’” she recalled. “When I was able to film it [and] to come back to this family, what you realize is — I love working on American Horror Story, and I love being able to be booked and busy, but I know that there’ll never be another family setting like Pose that is so inclusive of my trans brothers and trans sisters.”

In the end, she hopes that the series’ conclusion leads to Hollywood making even more stories like it.

“I think it’s a one-of-a-kind show,” she said, “and hopefully it inspires the industry to continue to make something even more inclusive.”