‘Yellowstone’ actor accused of claiming disability payments despite filming hit TV show [The Charlotte Observer]

Charlotte Observer (NC)

An actor is accused of collecting thousands of dollars in disability payments after saying an injury left her unable to work during the time she filmed the hit TV show “Yellowstone.”

The actor — Q’orianka Kilcher — is now charged with insurance fraud, according to the California Department of Insurance.

“California law prohibits misrepresenting injuries to medical providers to collect workers’ compensation insurance benefits, yet the investigation found Kilcher worked on ‘Yellowstone’ during the time she told a doctor she had been too injured to work,” officials wrote Monday, July 11, in a news release.

The actor’s attorney, Michael Becker, told the Associated Press she will “vigorously defend herself and asks that she be afforded the presumption of innocence both in and outside the courthouse.”

The allegations stem from October 2018, when California officials said Kilcher reported hurting her neck and shoulder while working on the film “Dora and the Lost City of Gold.” A year later, she reportedly reached out to an insurance company.

“Kilcher told the doctor handling her claim that she had been offered work since her injury occurred but had been unable to accept it because her neck pain was too severe,” officials wrote in their release. “Based on Kilcher’s statements to the doctor, she began receiving temporary total disability benefits.”

Despite reporting that she hadn’t been able to work, officials said Kilcher acted in “Yellowstone” from July to October 2019. After filming ended, she collected $96,838 in disability benefits that she didn’t deserve, according to the state insurance department.

She is accused of receiving the payments from October 2019 to last September.

“Third-party doctors verified her injury and entitlement to benefits,” Becker said in a statement, according to the Associated Press. “Ms. Kilcher was at all times candid with her doctors and treatment providers...and she never intentionally accepted benefits that she did not believe she was entitled to.”

Kilcher played the character Angela Blue Thunder in four episodes of “Yellowstone,” a show about the title national park and a rancher fighting to protect his land. She also starred as Pocahontas in “The New World,” which premiered in 2005, according to IMDb.

Kilcher, a 32-year-old North Hollywood resident, is facing two counts of “workers’ compensation insurance fraud,” officials said. Her next court date is set for August.