Q’orianka Kilcher Returns to ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 Amid Workers’ Compensation Lawsuit Shock

Q’orianka Kilcher Returning for ‘Yellowstone’ Season 5 amid Workers’ Compensation Fraud Case

In July, the California Department of Insurance announced that the 32-year-old actress had been charged with two felony counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud in California
Q’orianka Kilcher is slated to return to the screen for season 5 of Yellowstone amid an ongoing insurance fraud case, Deadline reports.

Premiering on Nov. 13, Kilcher will resume her role as Angela Blue Thunder, a powerhouse attorney on the massively popular Paramount Network series. Her character last appeared in the show’s third season, which aired in 2020.

In July, the California Department of Insurance announced that the 32-year-old actress had been charged with two felony counts of workers’ compensation insurance fraud in California after she allegedly broke state law by collecting disability benefits while she worked on Yellowstone.
Per their press release, Kilcher played a supporting role in the 2019 Paramount Players film Dora and the Lost City of Gold and allegedly injured her neck and right shoulder while working on the movie.

Authorities claimed Kilcher told a doctor she was too injured to work while filming for her recurring role in season 3 of Yellowstone three years ago, and she went on to collect $96,838 in disability benefits from Oct. 14, 2019, through Sept. 9, 2021. She self-surrendered and pleaded not guilty at her arraignment on May 27, Law360 reported.

With a hearing scheduled to take place on Sept. 7 in Los Angeles, a source close to Kilcher told PEOPLE last month that she was completely blindsided by the charges.

“She was shocked, to say the least, about the charges and is looking forward to getting the truth out there,” the source said in part. “As a result of a car accident she was involved in on the set of Dora, she is now 10 percent disabled for the rest of her life. The onset injury was a long road to recovery, going through intense physical and mental suffering.”
After Kilcher claimed to be injured in the accident on the set of Dora, the California Department of Insurance claimed that the actress “saw a doctor a few times that year, but stopped treatment and did not respond to the insurance company handling her claim on behalf of her employer.”

In October 2019, Kilcher allegedly contacted the insurance company to say she needed treatment and told a doctor that she had been unable to accept work offered to her since the injury occurred “because her neck pain was too severe.” She started receiving temporary total disability benefits after making these claims, according to the release.

“After reviewing wage information from her employer, the investigation found Kilcher had worked as an actress on the television show Yellowstone from July 2019 to October 2019, despite her statements to the doctor that she had been unable to work for a year,” the release read. “According to records, she returned to the doctor and started receiving disability benefits five days after last working on the show.”

The doctor who responded to Kilcher’s insurance claim said that if they had been aware of the star’s employment in 2019, “they would never have granted her the disability payments.”
The California Department of Insurance noted in its statement that workers’ compensation insurance fraud in the 2020-21 fiscal year potentially resulted in a loss of $161.94 million to Golden State businesses and workers at large.

In addition to her role in Yellowstone, Kilcher also portrayed Pochantas in 2005’s The New World, Kawillaka in Dora and the Lost City of Gold and, most recently, Niki in the 2022 film Dog.

In her next project Yesteryear, Kilcher is set to take on the leading role of Alma Deswood, a “Native actress who psychologically unravels in quarantine amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement,” according to the film’s IMDb page.