It looks like Joker star Robert De Niro is being sued for gender discrimination and sexual harassment by a former employee.
According to a report by Deadline, De Niro's former employee in Canal Productions, Chase Robinson, has filed a 12 million lawsuit against De Niro for gender discrimination, harassment, and the violation of labor laws. Robinson started out as De Niro's personal assistant. She quickly climbed up the company ladder to become the company's Vice President of Production & Finance.
However, after a decade of working for Canal Productions and for De Niro, Robinson decided to quit the company. Following that, De Niro's company filed a lawsuit against Robinson for 6 million dollars, claiming that Robinson binged-watched shows likeFriends, Arrested Development, and Schitt's Creek on Canal Production's Netflix account while she was working. The company also wanted repayment for the Vice President of Production And Finance's personal use of frequent flyer miles and Uber rides that were meant for the company.
It looks like Robinson's response is to file her own lawsuit against De Niro. According to the former Canal Employee, she had wanted to file her complaints right before she quit the company. When she did leave, Robinson told the company that their claims against her as false. However, De Niro refused to sign her hand-written resignation letter.
According to Robinson, she was subjected to unwarranted physical contact and verbal abuse by the actor and now she's looking for damages.
"De Niro] would joke with Ms. Robinson about his Viagra prescription. De Niro smirked to Ms. Robinson about his young paramour, who was around Ms. Robinson's age. He does not accept that men should treat women as equals. He does not care that gender discrimination in the workplace violates the law. As the allegations against Robert De Niro's frequent professional collaborator Harvey Weinstein make clear, much work remains to be done before quality is reached."
It looks like this legal drama is just adding to the controversy of De Niro's most recent film, Joker. Let's wait and see how everything plays out.
Joker is screening in cinemas.
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