Beauty In Black Is Finally Addressing Horace's Sexuality In Season 3: 'He's Been Ignoring It,' Says Ricco Ross

Fans of "Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black" may tune in to the Netflix drama for its outrageous plot twists, diabolical one-liners, and wild performances, but they're also getting something else in Season 3 — a nuanced story about generational sexuality.

Horace Bellarie, patriarch of the dysfunctional Bellarie family, has always been the show's biggest question mark. As actor Rico Ross explains to TVLine, Horace is a "very complex man, and like all leading men, they have their own faults. That's what makes him three-dimensional. He's not perfect."

Despite marrying and fathering at least one son with Olivia, he also exhibited an infatuation with male stripper Angel when we first met him in Season 1. Aside from a few fleeting comments, Horace's sexuality has gone largely unexplored, but everything changed in Season 3 when Horace discovered his son Charles' ongoing affair with Varney, the Bellarie family's trusted lawyer.

Horace reacted with homophobic fury, condemning them both for their behavior, but Kimmie was quick to clock what was really going on. She could tell that Horace was frustrated, perhaps even jealous, that he wasn't able to explore his own sexuality as openly as today's younger generation. During one particularly memorable car ride, Kimmie asked Horace point-blank if he's bisexual, to which Horace responded by giving her the ride of her life. To quote the woman herself, "You f**ked me in the truck like I never been f**ked before." (OK, Horace!)

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While Kimmie remained more confused than ever, Charles was filled with rage; following Horace's callous response to Charles' attempt on his own life, the youngest Bellarie imagined killing Horace in cold blood. Tensions escalated even further when Charles walked in on a half-naked Angel attempting to seduce Horace in his bedroom, revealing the extent of his father's hypocrisy. It's a deliciously complex storyline, one Ross is proud to be telling.

"This man has been so driven with business and life that he hasn't really focused on himself," Ross says. "He's of a generation where people didn't go to therapy as much. If you had a problem, you'd walk it off, and you didn't talk to other people about it. He's been ignoring it, and this new person in his life is from a different generation where people do talk about these things, and where certain things are acceptable that weren't acceptable when he was the age of his son. There is a lot of backstory, not just for Horace about his sexuality, but Horace's history overall. That's part of the trauma and the tension."

Fortunately, Horace's story will continue unfold in a fourth season of "Beauty in Black," following Netflix's decision to reverse its initial cancellation after Season 3 — a development Ricco Ross credits entirely to the fans.

"I don't know if the fans understand the power they have," Ross tells TVLine. "I think Netflix has a business plan where they run a show for a certain amount of seasons until they've gotten all of the new subscribers that they're going to get from that show. And if they take that money and create a new show, they may get a bunch of new subscribers. I figured that might be their business plan, because it doesn't make any sense to cancel a show that everyone loves."

But seven months after announcing that Season 3 would be the show's last, it revealed that the Tyler Perry drama would, in fact, return for Season 4. "They reversed their cancellation, and I think it's because the fans have a certain power," Ross says. "I was reading some of the comments, and a lot of people were saying they were going to cancel their subscriptions because Netflix canceled the show."

"In any event, the cast and Tyler and myself are extremely happy that we get to to keep this family together," Ross says. "When you do have a hit show, it's like catching lightning in a bottle. You can have a show with all the right pieces, and it still might not work. But this show worked, and it continues to work, and I think to kill it off so soon would have been a shame."

Speaking of things being killed off too soon, did you know that Ricco Ross' character wasn't originally going to survive for as long as he has?

"When I first got my contract, it only guaranteed me five episodes," Ross tells TVLine. "That was it. The way the series was written, Horace died at the end of Season 1 and you were never supposed to see him again. He would be gone and Kimmie was going to take over."

So, what changed? As Ross recalls, the a-ha moment came after shooting a contentious Bellarie family meeting, which included one (of many) face-offs between Horace and Norman.

"Tyler Perry finally cut — because he does take very long cuts — and he walked in and told us all to look at the monitor," Ross says. "There were about 50 people standing around watching the scene we had just shot, and Tyler looked at all of us and said, 'That doesn't happen. We've got something special here.' And then he pulled me aside and said he was distracted. He said, 'I had a hard time focusing on the scene because I was thinking that I can't kill Horace off. And I love killing off characters!'"

It was then that Perry asked Ross if he would stay on as a series regular, which was a no-brainer decision for him. "It's not often you get to play a character with so many layers, especially in an ensemble cast," Ross says.