Sarah Paulson's reporter walk-through scene in "Asylum" was pulled directly from actual footage of Bill Baldini's exposé piece on Pennhurst Asylum in Spring City, Pennsylvania. Baldini's work led to the closure of Pennhurst and the release of all of its patients. Pennhurst is now the location of a seasonal haunted house and has been featured on numerous shows, due to the reported extreme paranormal activity in Pennhurst's buildings.
On September 2, 2014, creator Ryan Murphy announced that all of the seasons are connected to each other in some way.
When Cody Fern joined the cast of Apocalypse he was told that he would be playing the hero to Sarah Paulson's villain, just a couple days before filming of the season began did he learn that he was actually playing its villain Michael and that Paulson was playing the hero.
Co-creator Ryan Murphy repeatedly tried to book Reese Witherspoon in guest spots, but she was always unavailable. He also pursued Michelle Pfeiffer.
The character of Edward Mordrake (Wes Bentley) who appeared in "Freak Show", was mistakenly believed to have been an actual person, but that was revealed as a hoax. The hoax story goes: He was a nineteenth century aristocrat who was said to have suffered a form of Diprosopus. He had an extra face on the back of his head, which could neither eat nor speak out loud, although it was described as being able to laugh and cry. Edward reportedly begged doctors to have his "demon face" removed, claiming it "whispered" to him at night. No doctor would attempt the surgery. He later committed suicide at the age of twenty-three. However, this story has been proven to be false. Mordrake was discovered to have been the fictional creation of Charles Lotin Hildreth, who fabricated his story for a sensationalist article in the Boston Sunday Post in 1895.