American screenwriter, director and producer Ryan Murphy was BOTD in 1965. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana to a working-class Catholic family, he studied journalism at Indiana University Bloomington, beginning his professional career at The Washington Post. He settled in Los Angeles, working as an entertainment journalist and writing screenplays in his spare time. In 2009, he produced his first TV series Popular, a comedy about two schoolgirls at opposite ends of the popularity spectrum, followed by 2003’s Nip/Tuck, a black comedy about rival plastic surgeons. He made his film debut as writer-director of the 2006 film Running With Scissors, a sanitised but queer-positive adaptation of Augusten Burroughs‘ memoir. He achieved success with his 2009 series Glee, a musical dramedy about the teen misfits of a high school choir. The show became a global phenomenon, spawning several musical albums, a successful stage show and a concert film, and was praised for its sympathetic depiction of queer teenager Kurt, played by Chris Colfer. He had similar success with the anthology horror series American Horror Story, resurrecting the careers of his regular stars Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett, and with vivid appearances by queer actors Sarah Paulson, Denis O’Hare, Matt Bomer, Zachary Quinto, Leslie Jordan, Cheyenne Jackson and Billy Porter. His American Crime Story series, premiering in 2016 with a re-enactment of the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, was followed by The Assassination of Gianni Versace, a grisly chronicle of gay serial killer Andrew Cunanan; and Impeachment, portraying President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. His 2017 series Feud: Bette and Joan, an exploration of the rivalry between actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, was praised for its portrayal of misogyny in Hollywood and for resuscitating Crawford’s “bad mother” reputation. He was also highly praised for his 2017 series Pose, a drama about Black and Latino trans women set against the HIV/AIDS crisis in 1980s New York City, starring Porter alongside trans actresses Michaela Jaé Rodriguez and Dominique Jackson. In 2018, he produced a successful Broadway revival of Mart Crowley‘s play The Boys in the Band with an all-gay cast, winning several Tony Awards, which was later filmed for television. After signing a lucrative production deal with streaming service Netflix, he produced the crime anthology series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story, based on the 1993 trial of the Menendez brothers for the murder of their parents. While wildly popular, the series drew widespread criticism for its graphic depiction of the murders, while the Menendez brothers condemned Murphy for depicting them as closeted gay men and incestuous lovers. A second season of Feud followed in 2024, Capote vs The Swans, profiling the self-destructive final years of writer Truman Capote, followed by Monster‘s second season in 2025, a grisly and voyeuristic depiction of the crimes of gay serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. Now considered one of the most powerful producers in television, Murphy’s work has been both praised for raising LGBTQ representation in popular culture, dismissed for peddling gay stereotypes and widely condemned for exploiting real-life trauma. Murphy married his long-term partner David Miller in 2012, with whom he has three children, born via a surrogate mother.