In Robert De Niro’s recollection, Graham Chase Robinson was a negligent worker who spent her days at a $300,000/12 months job watching tv and utilizing firm funds for private journeys. To listen to Robinson inform it, the 80-year-old actor was the worst of bosses, subjecting her to gender harassment and making uncomfortable jokes about his Viagra prescription.
These conflicting accounts have been the topic of a authorized battle that started within the fall of 2019 when De Niro’s firm sued Robinson, an worker at his manufacturing firm who started working for him as an assistant in 2008. At first, the matter took on the acquainted contours of a narrative a couple of lazy worker shirking the labor that an older technology embraced, with ready-made punchlines about Robinson’s alleged use of Netflix. The swimsuit shortly acquired a extra critical character, although. Robinson responded with a lawsuit of her personal, claiming that after she rose via the ranks to change into vice chairman of manufacturing and finance at De Niro’s Canal Productions, she needed to give up her job when she might now not endure the hostile work setting and gender discrimination she says she confronted.
On Monday, the dispute got here to a head in a Manhattan federal courtroom when the actor took the witness stand in his personal protection. It was the primary day of a civil trial that may tackle each lawsuits.
“It’s not like I’m asking for her to go on the market and scrape flooring and mop the ground,” De Niro testified, in keeping with the AP, earlier than blurting out, “That is all nonsense!” The outlet reported that he appeared grouchy as he listened to a lawyer describe his interactions with Robinson, and that he twice raised his voice practically to a shout.
The testimony expanded on the claims that Canal Productions first made in opposition to Robinson in state Supreme Court docket in Manhattan. The corporate alleged in its preliminary swimsuit that Robinson charged her company American Categorical card with tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} in private bills, together with a $2,608.66 keep at Los Angeles’s Montage Lodge for a pal’s party, and transformed thousands and thousands of frequent flyer miles for her personal use. A overview of Canal’s Netflix account, the swimsuit stated, revealed that she accessed 55 episodes of Associates over a four-day week interval in January 2019, together with 20 episodes of Arrested Improvement and 10 episodes of Schitt’s Creek throughout one week in March of that 12 months.
Robinson responded by suing her outdated boss in federal courtroom shortly afterward. Making reference to Harvey Weinstein and Invoice O’Reilly—and noting that Weinstein was a frequent De Niro collaborator—she stated that De Niro made “gratuitous undesirable bodily contact” and handled her as his “workplace spouse,” assigning her around-the-clock home tasks duties regardless of denying her time beyond regulation pay. De Niro’s swimsuit, Robinson claimed, was stuffed with “clickbait” allegations that falsely characterised her as “a idler, a thief, and a miscreant.” In a voicemail her legal professionals launched, De Niro described Robinson as a “spoiled brat” and requested her, “How dare you fucking disrespect me?”
In opening statements forward of De Niro’s testimony, Robinson’s lawyer stated she has been unable to get a job and afraid to go away her residence since her employment at Canal ended. De Niro would scream at her, the legal professional stated, and tag together with her sexist descriptors. De Niro’s lawyer described his shopper as “type, affordable, beneficiant” and Robinson as “condescending, demeaning, controlling, abusive.”
When requested by Robinson’s legal professional throughout his testimony if he thought-about her a conscientious worker, De Niro responded, “Not after every little thing I’m going via now.”
The trial is anticipated to final two weeks.
