Robert De Niro‘s legal battle with his former assistant just took a very serious turn.
Back in August we all had a good laugh at some of the more outrageous details out of the lawsuit the actor and his company had filed against Graham Chase Robinson.
According to Canal Productions‘ suit, Robinson was first hired as De Niro’s assistant in 2008 and was later promoted to Vice President of Production and Finance (for which she had a salary of $300,000 per year by 2019).
Related: Is Jenelle Evans About To Sue MTV?
In that role, per the legal claims, Robinson spent thousands of dollars in company funds on expensive lunches, Ubers, and taxis.
More hilarious, headline-grabbing, and frankly relatable was the accusation the VP had watched hundreds of hours of Netflix while at work.
Infamously, during one four-day period, she is said to have watched 55 episodes of Friends.
As the $6 million suit put it:
“Watching shows on Netflix was not in any way part of or related to the duties and responsibilities of Robinson’s employment and, on information and belief, was done for her personal entertainment, amusement and pleasure at times when she was being paid to work.”
The legal accusations of embezzlement and dereliction of duty weren’t a joke, but this was a pretty light story.
That was then.
Robinson has now filed her own suit, and it’s no laughing matter at all. She is accusing her former boss of gender discrimination, harassment, unwanted physical contact, and verbal abuse.
The lawsuit, which reads as much like a press release as it does a legal filing, states:
“For many, the ‘good old days’ were really the bad old days. Sexism and sex stereotyping were commonplace, and a patriarchal sensibility was pervasive among the nation’s powerbrokers. Robert De Niro is someone who has clung to old mores. He does not accept the idea that men should treat women as equals. He does not care that gender discrimination in the workplace violates the law. Ms. Robinson is a casualty of this attitude.”
The docs go into detail, accusing De Niro of assigning her “stereotypically females duties” like doing his housework and that he had her “scratch his back, button his shirts, fix his collars, tie his ties, and prod him awake when he was in bed.”
Maybe that’s reasonable for a personal assistant, but she says she had already been promoted to “VP” by that time. Or… was that just a made up title? She did allegedly have time to watch hours of TV while on the job, so her duties couldn’t have been that intensive, right?
Hmm.
Robinson also says she was called names and forced to listen to De Niro’s foul language, including calling a female business partner the c-word.
According to the suit, he was overly familiar with her, including — again, per the suit — urinating while on phone calls with her and joking about his Viagra prescription. She also says he suggested she could get pregnant using sperm from a male coworker.
Notably, the suit alleges De Niro often got drunk and belligerent with her. She included as part of her suit a voicemail, exclusively obtained by TMZ, in which a man purported to be De Niro can be heard shouting:
“You f**king don’t answer my calls? How dare you?? You’re about to be fired. How dare you?”
And ending with:
“Don’t f**king get angry with me ’cause I’m pissed off ’cause I didn’t get a single thing that I need right now… you gotta be f**king kidding me, you spoiled brat! F**k you!”
She also alleges De Niro sat “idly by” when his friend slapped her on the butt.
The former assistant says she threatened to quit many times but was always given some reason to stay — either an opportunity or a threat of “repercussion.”
Eventually, though, she says she was quitting:
“In response, De Niro took a page out of the Bill O’Reilly playbook. Before Ms. Robinson could sue, De Niro retaliated. He had Canal sue Ms. Robinson in New York County Supreme Court and ensured that the suit would be widely publicized. The lawsuit is replete with ‘clickbait’ allegations that falsely characterize Ms. Robinson as a loafer, a thief, and a miscreant. Now, when her name is Googled, these allegations pop up on the screen. The results have been devastating to Ms. Robinson. Her reputation and her career have been destroyed.”
Worth noting, De Niro is not being accused of sexual misconduct as part of this suit.
Robinson is seeking $12 million in damages, twice the amount of the suit against her.
De Niro’s attorney released a statement to Us Weekly in response to the accusations:
“The allegations made by Graham Chase Robinson against Robert De Niro are beyond absurd.”
What do YOU think of this legal mudslinging??
[Image via WENN/Avalon/NBC/YouTube.]
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