After the spectacular flop of All’s Fair, a legal drama starring Kim Kardashian (among others), Ryan Murphy returns to what he does best – creating a stylised horror story. The Beauty, set in a world of celebrity and supermodels, explores the fixation on physical appearance that dominates today’s culture.
Ryan Murphy became famous as the creator of the musical comedy Glee and American Horror Story, a multi-season anthology that plays with popular horror tropes. Between its seasons, he also created shows such as Pose for FX and Ratched, Monster and The Watcher for Netflix.
The official trailer for The Beauty mixes eye candy – it’s filled with bold colours and glamorous scenography – with sinister characters and gruesome body horror. Here’s what we know about Ryan Murphy’s new project.
When will The Beauty be released?
In the US, the latest Ryan Murphy series will drop on FX and Hulu on Wednesday, 21 January 2026. UK-based horror fans can catch The Beauty on Disney+ on Thursday, 22 January 2026.
The series, consisting of 11 episodes, will debut with a three-episode premiere. Subsequent episodes will appear weekly on the service.
FX
What’s the plot of The Beauty?
As with The Substance, The Beauty will delve into the topic of unrealistic beauty standards and our obsession with youth.
The story will follow two FBI agents, Cooper Madsen and Jordan Bennett, who investigate the mysterious deaths of international supermodels. The trail leads them to Paris, where a sexually transmitted virus is rampant, which makes its victims physically perfect, but at the cost of their sanity.
Everything indicates that these bizarre infections are not a coincidence — the agents quickly conclude that they are somehow connected to tech billionaire Byron Forst, known as The Corporation. As it turns out, he’s developed an extraordinary drug called The Beauty, which is supposed to be a remedy for all beauty deficiencies.
Murphy makes no secret that the series was inspired by the Ozempic boom, a diabetes drug now popular as a weight-loss remedy (via Variety).
It’s something I’ve never done before, which is a sci-fi medical show about a new virus that mutates and it’s sexually transmitted, that turns you into your absolute perfect self. And the question is, how far would you go to be beautiful? What would you sacrifice to that, and does that matter?
That show was looking at, I call it the Ozempic culture. One little shot, and suddenly you’re going to look better and feel better, and all your problems are going to go away. But what are you really working on? What’s going on with you that you feel you need to do that? Sometimes it is health, sometimes it’s vanity.
Who’s starring in The Beauty?
In his new project, Ryan Murphy has once again assembled a variety of interesting names, including actors and actresses with whom he’s already worked on previous series.
- Evan Peters as Cooper Madsen, an FBI agent investigating deaths caused by a new drug
- Rebecca Hall as Jordan Bennett, Madsen’s FBI partner
- Ashton Kutcher as Byron Forst / The Corporation, a tech billionaire behind a miracle drug called “The Beauty”
- Anthony Ramos as The Assassin, an enforcer working for Forst
- Jeremy Pope as Jeremy, an outsider entangled in a case involving “The Beauty”
But that’s not all – in the series, you’ll also be able to spot Isabella Rossellini, Amelia Gray Hamlin, Bella Hadid, Meghan Trainor, Lux Pascal, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ari Graynor, Ben Platt, Billy Eichner, Jaquel Spivey, Jessica Alexander, Jon Jon Briones, John Carroll Lynch, Julie Halston, Nicola Peltz Beckham, and Peter Gallagher.
