The Cleaning Lady made headlines for minor behind-the-scenes shakeups before the Fox series was the subject of a sexual abuse scandal in 2026 — one year after the show was off the air.
Based on the 2017 Argentinian TV show La Chica Que Limpia, The Cleaning Lady premiered in 2022 and followed a former surgeon Thony (Élodie Yung) who was in the U.S. on an expired visa. To help secure bone marrow treatment for her son (Sebastien, Valentino LaSalle and Khalen Roman Sanchez), who had a rare and life-threatening medical disorder, Thony made a living as a cleaning service worker — until she witnessed a murder and became a cleaning lady and doctor for the mob.
In addition to Yung, the show starred Adan Canto, Oliver Hudson, Martha Millan, Sean Lew and more. It ran for four seasons with showrunner changes and multiple character deaths affecting the trajectory of the show.
The Fox series made headlines again in January 2026 when executive producer Timothy Busfield was named in an arrest warrant after being accused of child sexual abuse by two minors he worked with on set. The actor, who is married to Melissa Gilbert, was not immediately arrested and claimed in an investigation interview cited in the arrest warrant that it was “highly unlikely” he had physical contact with the accusers.
Keep scrolling for full breakdown — including other times the show was plagued with controversy:
Showrunner Changes
Warner Bros. Television Studios acquired the remake rights to the Spanish-language Argentine TV show La Chica Que Limpia in 2019 and subsequently developed The Cleaning Lady. Miranda Kwok was set to write and develop the series adaptation alongside fellow executive producers Melissa Carter and Shay Mitchell.
Once the show was picked up, Carter became the showrunner but Kwok was promoted to the position in season 2. Fox brought Jeannine Renshaw as an executive producer and coshowrunner one season later but neither Renshaw nor Kwok returned for season 4. The Cleaning Lady was then led by Daniel Cerone as the next executive producer and new showrunner but it was ultimately not renewed.
Oliver Hudson’s Shocking Exit
After being introduced as one of the main characters, Hudson’s Garrett Miller was killed off two seasons into the show.
“This was a really difficult decision to make, but a death we knew that would shock our audience and affect Thony the most. As writers, we really wanted Agent Miller’s death to mean something,” Carter told TVLine in December 2022. “The difficult part was that it was right for the storytelling, but incredibly hard to kill one of our favorite actors on the show. Oliver is so giving, friendly and beloved by the cast and crew [that] when the script went out, we had crew members begging us to write a different ending.”
Carter called Hudson a “total pro,” adding, “When he signed on for this character, he knew that it might only be for a season or two. He called me at the end of season 1 and asked what was left for Garrett Miller to do.”
She concluded: “So this is something that he was creatively prepared for, but it was still the toughest decision we had to make on the show. Long before any of the roles were cast, back when Miranda and I pitched the pilot to Fox, they suggested killing his character off at the end of season 1. But after falling in love with Oliver, we put this off as long as we could.”
Adan Canto’s Offscreen Death
Following a private battle with appendiceal cancer, Canto died at age 42 in January 2024. Three months later, his character on The Cleaning Lady was written off with Arman being killed moments before he was to be safely returned to Nadia (Eva De Dominici) in exchange for a ransom.
“It was still a shock to us when it happened, but we knew that he was struggling, and we also knew that he really did not want people to know the reasons [he was unable to work],” Kwok told The Hollywood Reporter at the time. “It was a challenge for us, because we had to balance knowing what we did and having to figure out how to move forward with that, and be sensitive to him and his family.”
The showrunners revealed that the original plan was to temporarily write Canto’s character out of the show with hopes of bringing him back.
“We were already going to have his parents and family come onto the show,” Kwok said. “When we had to shift, we realized that we still wanted to create this space for Arman to return. We decided to continue with the story line surrounding his backstory so that we were all able to explore his character through Thony and Nadia, and learn about Arman in a different way.”
She continued: “He was on board with that. He, of course, was heartbroken that he couldn’t continue this journey with us, so he wanted to support us as much as he could.”
Timothy Busfield’s Sex Abuse Allegations
Us Weekly confirmed in January 2026 that Busfield was named in a New Mexico arrest warrant after being accused of child sexual abuse by two twin boys on the set of The Cleaning Lady while he served as the director of the Fox drama.
Busfield didn’t publicly address the scandal but a police officer wrote in their report that Busfield and his wife claimed that they had “a relationship” with the alleged victims’ families outside of work.
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