Actor and director Robert De Niro, who has criticized former President Donald Trump for the way he speaks about women, just got smacked by a court for his company’s treatment of one woman.
Graham Chase Robinson, the actor’s former assistant, sued De Niro’s production company, Canal Productions, for discrimination and retaliation, The New York Times reported.
After a four-year fight and a two-week trial, De Niro’s company was found guilty, and Robinson was awarded $1.2 million in damages, more than $633,000 for each charge.
“Not only did Ms. Robinson win her case against Canal, but the jury completely vindicated Ms. Robinson by finding Mr. De Niro’s claims against her to be without merit,” David Sanford, chairman of the law firm that represented Robinson, said.
Robinson alleged that the actor had her doing menial, personal tasks after promoting her to a vice president position.
She said that some of the tasks included preparing De Niro’s new apartment, choosing sofa fabrics, and preparing a birthday party for director Martin Scorsese.
“I kept on being given these jobs and objecting to them, objecting to wanting to be involved in setting up his home,” she said. “You do that with your girlfriend. Do that with your wife. You don’t do that with your female V.P. of production.”
The Times reported:
Not long after, she was taken off the townhouse project, and Ms. Chen sent emails to other Canal employees instructing them to limit their communications with her, which she testified had only been intended to narrowly remove her from work involving Ms. Chen. Ms. Robinson resigned soon after.
Lawyers for Ms. Robinson argued that Ms. Chen’s direction was retaliation fueled by gender discrimination, citing text messages from Ms. Chen to Mr. De Niro accusing Ms. Robinson of imagining a “fantasy relationship” with her boss. (Ms. Robinson said she never had any romantic interest in Mr. De Niro.)
“She thought she was your wife,” Ms. Chen texted Mr. De Niro in 2019 after Ms. Robinson informed her former employer that she would be seeking legal representation unless the company resolved her request for severance pay, recommendation letters and other items. “I saw it from the beginning.”
“The balls, the nerve, the chutzpah,” Mr. De Niro responded. “The sense of entitlement. How dare her.”
De Niro testified in a trial last month regarding the lawsuit that his former personal assistant had filed, alleging that the actor was a bad boss.
De Niro, who seemed grumpy at times, held back from exploding when his interactions with her were broken down. He finally let out a scream: “This is all nonsense!”
