Portia De Rossi Joins Cast Of 'Scandal' For Season 4

by Chelsea ReganJuly 23, 2014, 12:00 amNews >

Portia de Rossi will appear in the fourth season of Shona Rhimes' hit political drama Scandal.

Portia de Rossi Joining 'Scandal'

The news of de Rossi’s casting was broken by her wife, talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres. “So annoying when people brag on twitter & that's why I'm not tweeting that Portia just signed on to do a top secret arc on 'Scandal,’” wrote DeGeneres. “Oops.”

So annoying when people brag on twitter & that's why I'm not tweeting that Portia just signed on to do a top secret arc on "Scandal". Oops.

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) July 23, 2014

Shortly after DeGeneres revealed that de Rossi would be working on the ABC series, the Scandal writers confirmed the Arrested Development star’s casting.

We are so excited to have Portia de Rossi joining us this coming season!

— Scandal Writers (@ScandalWriters) July 23, 2014

De Rossi's breakout TV role was in Ally McBeal, playing high-powered attorney Nelle Porter. Her next regular role was playing the narcissist Lindsay Bluth Fünke on Arrested Development, which came back for a fourth season on Netflix in 2013. After an arc on FX’s Nip/Tuck, de Rossi took on the lead role in the offbeat workplace sitcom Better off Ted that was prematurely taken off the air.

It’s unknown who de Rossi will be playing in Scandal’s fourth season. It’s been speculated that she could be put in a position to replace Columbus Short’s character Harrison Wright as one of the members of Olivia Pope’s (Kerry Washington) team of Gladiators.