...ment

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/business/media/cbs-bull-weatherly-dushku-sexual-harrasment.html

The former Buffy the Vampire Slayer star made headlines last year when she joined the CBS (https://ew.com/tv/2017/04/21/bull-eliza-dushku-first-look/) drama for a three-episode arc that was poised to become a series regular role (https://tvline.com/2017/03/23/eliza-dushku-bull-season-2-cast-cbs/). "Then," according to The New York Times, "came a series of comments that made Ms. Dushku uncomfortable. In front of the cast and crew, Mr. Weatherly remarked on her appearance, and made a rape joke and a comment about a threesome. Shortly after Ms. Dushku confronted the star about his behavior, she was written off the show. She believed her time on Bull came to a sudden end as a result of retaliation. After she went through mediation with CBS, the network agreed to a confidential settlement that would pay her $9.5 million, roughly the equivalent of what Ms. Dushku would have earned if she had stayed on as a cast member for four seasons." The Times says details of Dushku's confidential settlement emerged from the independent investigation into sexual misconduct at CBS. Dushku declined to comment to The Times, but CBS confirmed the settlement, saying in a statement: “The allegations in Ms. Dushku’s claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done. The settlement of these claims reflects the projected amount that Ms. Dushku would have received for the balance of her contract as a series regular, and was determined in a mutually agreed upon mediation process at the time.”

Report: Les Moonves personally oversaw CBS' $9.5 million settlement with Eliza Dushku -- payout was "sneaked" into Bull's production budget (https://deadline.com/2018/12/les-moonves-oversaw-eliza-dushku-settlement-bull-michael-weatherly-cbs-1202520620/)

Deadline reports the former CBS boss "was deeply and directly involved in the $9.5 million payout that CBS forked over to Eliza Dushku in January after the actor accused Bull lead, Michael Weatherly, of sexual harassment on the first season of the CBS drama...Additionally, the confidential payment was sneaked into Bull’s production budget in an effort apparently motivated to avoid the sum popping up on the company’s books, sources say."

I Worked at CBS. I Didn’t Want to be Sexually Harassed. I Was Fired
by Eliza Dushku
December 19, 2018


The narrative propagated by CBS, actor Michael Weatherly, and writer-producer Glenn Gordon Caron is deceptive and in no way fits with how they treated me on the set of the television show “Bull’’ and retaliated against me for simply asking to do my job without relentless sexual harassment.

This is not a “he-said/she-said” case. Weatherly’s behavior was captured on CBS’s own videotape recordings.




I feel compelled to chronicle what actually happened after The New York Times published a story about how CBS handled my allegations. I declined to be interviewed for that piece because I wanted to honor the terms of my settlement with the network.

I was under the impression that Weatherly and Caron would also not respond per our settlement. Instead, all commented to the Times in what amounted to more deflection, denial, and spin.







Before I get into what actually happened, here is some background.

CBS vigorously courted me for several network shows. When presenting the offer to co-lead on “Bull”, CBS made the case to my team that the whole Dr. Jason Bull M.O. of bedding every female interest and winning every case needed strong female balance. CBS said it wanted to pivot to a classic “two-hander” (two main characters), a la “Moonlighting.”

After I accepted, the network even brought in Caron, who created “Moonlighting”, as the new showrunner for “Bull”. And so I was hired to finish the last three episodes of season one, with CBS’s expressed intention of my beginning season two as a series regular with an option for up to six seasons.





In explaining his bad behavior, Weatherly, who plays Dr. Bull, claimed I didn’t get his attempt at humor. That’s how a perpetrator rationalizes when he is caught.

For the record, I grew up in Boston with three older brothers and have generally been considered a tomboy. I made a name for myself playing a badass vampire slayer turned tough LA cheerleader; I have worked with numerous leading men, including Robert DeNiro, Leonardo DiCaprio, even CBS’s own David Boreanaz. I can handle a locker room.

I have been on Howard Stern and was hired by Kevin Smith for a film where I wore a black leather cat suit and played a member of an international diamond-thief-gang-ring. I do not want to hear that I have a “humor deficit” or can’t take a joke. I did not over-react. I took a job and, because I did not want to be harassed, I was fired.







Weatherly harassed me from early on. The tapes show his offer to take me to his “rape van, filled with all sorts of lubricants and long phallic things.” There was also his constant name-calling; playing provocative songs (like “Barracuda”) on his iPhone when I approached my set marks; and his remark about having a threesome.

He made the threesome remark to me about himself and me in a room full of people. Minutes later, a crew member sidled up next to me and, with a smirk, said in a low voice, “I’m with Bull. I wanna have a threesome with you too.”




For weeks, Weatherly was recorded making sexual comments, and was recorded mimicking penis jousting with a male costar, this directly on the heels of the “threesome” proposal, and another time referring to me repeatedly as “legs.”

He regularly commented on my “ravishing” beauty, following up with audible groans, oohing and aahing. As the tapes show, he liked to boast about his sperm and vasectomy reversals (“I want you to know, Eliza, I have powerful swimmers”).

Weatherly had a habit of exaggerated eye-balling and leering at me; once, he leaned into my body and inhaled, smelling me in a dramatic swoon. As was caught on tape, after I flubbed a line, he shouted in my face, “I will take you over my knee and spank you like a little girl.”







One day, when my now husband, Peter Palandjian, visited the set, Weatherly made us all watch as he pretended to urinate on an indoor office plant, then spun around pretending to shake himself off and pull up his zipper.

The tapes show Weatherly routinely exclaimed “yellow card” after distasteful remarks. I learned from crew members that, because there had been previous harassment training on “Bull”, Weatherly’s delight in yelling “yellow card” was his way of mocking the very harassment training that was meant to keep him in line.




Weatherly also bragged about his friendship with CBS chief executive Les Moonves. He regaled me with stories about using Moonves’s plane, how they vacationed together, and what great friends they were.

Weatherly wielded this special friendship as an amulet and, as I can see now, as a threat.




Weatherly did all this. His conduct was unwelcome and directed at me. Watching the recordings in the settlement process, it is easy to see how uncomfortable, speechless, and frozen he made me feel.

For Weatherly’s part, it looks like a deeply insecure power play, about a need to dominate and demean. In no way was it playful, nor was it joking with two willing participants. It was not “Cary Grant ad-libbed lines,” an incredulous Weatherly excuse which, even if true, asks us to believe that Hollywood behaviors from 70 years ago might be acceptable today.




What is hardest to share is the way he made me feel for 10 to 12 hours per day for weeks. This was classic workplace harassment that became workplace bullying.

I was made to feel dread nearly all the time I was in his presence. And this dread continues to come up whenever I think of him and that experience.




There was daily undeniably demeaning conduct that is unacceptable in an absolute sense. Everyone should be allowed to work without harassment. Weatherly sexually harassed and bullied me day-in and day-out and would have gotten away with it had he not been caught on tape, and had the CBS lawyers not inadvertently shared the tapes with my counsel, Barbara Robb.

Reflecting on the whole ordeal, it often makes me think with sadness of the majority of victims who do not have the benefit of the fortunate evidence — the tapes that I had.







Weatherly never apologized to me. Instead, I was fired shortly after speaking with him. After weeks of enduring Weatherly’s harassment, I resolved to deal with it directly. I aimed to be my diplomatic best. This was not easy for me, since there were plenty of other things I would like to have said to him.

Framing my request as a plea for “help” in setting a different tone on the set, I asked him to “be my ally” and to “help ease the sexualized set comments.” Weatherly responded with, “Eliza, no one respects women more than I do,” citing his many sisters and his professed history of being “too respectful of women.”




After I left his trailer, I went straight back to my own trailer and wrote down everything I could remember about the conversation in a text to my manager, adding, “I hope he actually received it well & doesn’t run back to the studio telling them to fire me lol.”

Then, as I came to learn months later in the settlement process, Weatherly texted CBS Television President David Stapf about 40 minutes after our conversation and asked for what amounted to my being written off the show.

Specifically, Weatherly complained that I had a “humor deficit.’’




Retaliation is illegal, not to mention unfair and painful. After I addressed it, Weatherly doubled down and ratcheted up his retaliation. Following our conversation and up until the season wrapped weeks later, he barely spoke to me, making it clear he was icing me out. He made every remaining day on the set somehow more awkward and oppressive.

How did it end? With a final act of bullying.







After I addressed matters with Weatherly, he circulated a “memo” to the crew instructing not to comment on my appearance or beauty. I do not know if it was a written memo or a general verbal edict, but everyone called it “the memo.”

Weatherly’s message was clear to all: Eliza Dushku was offended by comments on her looks. (For the record, I love a good compliment).




As it turned out, the “memo” was a prop for Weatherly’s final act of retaliation against me. At the wrap party held on the last day of the season, Weatherly insisted that I stay for the champagne toast. It was odd to me for several reasons: Weatherly knew I was sober, and he had not spoken to me this warmly for weeks.

Nevertheless, I also wanted to say goodbyes to friends and pay my respects to the crew. Weatherly emceed the toast. So when he called me up in front of the entire cast and crew to pick the winning party raffle tickets, Weatherly was actually going out of his way to humiliate me and said something along the lines of: “I need a beautiful woman to come pull this ticket.”

He laid it on thick. “A truly beautiful woman . . . hmmm, who could that be?” He was performing, pretending to search the room. I immediately clocked what was happening, my breath tightened. “Eliza! Yes, the most beautiful woman of all. Yes, Eliza, you have to come pull the raffle ticket!” he instructed, dripping with sarcasm and in direct violation of his own edict not to comment on my physical appearance.




No matter that I’ve acted in more than 30 films and starred in two network series, Weatherly had to let everyone know he was the boss, that he had won and no one would come on that set and reject what he thought should be his unfettered right to do and say whatever he wants.

There are crew members on record as witnesses to corroborate what for me was one of the most cruel, most aggressive humiliations I have ever experienced. It was I who was mortified.







As for Caron, the “Bull” showrunner, he was undaunted to do Weatherly’s bidding. The fact is that Caron wrote me off the show within 48 hours of my complaints about Weatherly.

According to what top production brass at CBS told my agent, Caron had gotten rid of me without the knowledge or consent of that CBS team. Caron personally fired me as I was filming on set one afternoon. It is highly unusual to get fired in the middle of a shooting.




I immediately phoned my manager and agent, who in turn phoned the high-ups at CBS. The CBS execs were baffled. They said that they didn’t believe that Caron had the authority to fire me this way and suggested that it could not be true.

What’s more, as was documented in several e-mails and texts, they and the production company, Amblin Television, were reportedly loving my work and called what I was doing for the show “fantastic’’ and that they “love this dynamic.’’




My talent representatives spoke to Caron about my firing months later. Caron defended Weatherly, explaining he had simply exhibited “frat” behavior and added, “What does Eliza expect, she was in Maxim.” On the subject of my legal rights, Caron said to my manager, “If Eliza wants to be out of the business by suing CBS, she can be out of the business.”




The boys’ club remains in full force at CBS. The bullying continued.

In the settlement process, CBS used as defense a photo of me in a bathing suit, pulled from my own Instagram, as if this suggested I deserved or was not offended by the sexual harassment I experienced.







CBS ultimately paid me $9.5 million earlier this year to settle the allegations — an amount that represented a portion of what I would have earned had I finished my potential six-year contract. But this wasn’t just about money; I wanted a culture change.

A significant settlement condition was my requirement that CBS designate an individual trained in sexual harassment compliance to monitor Weatherly and the show in general. CBS did not want to do this, but I wouldn’t settle without this condition.




Another condition I insisted on was that I be allowed to meet with Steven Spielberg, whose Amblin Television coproduces “Bull”, so I could talk with him about what occurred on his set. I have not yet had my meeting with Spielberg, but I cannot help but wonder where the legendary Hollywood director was throughout all of this.

I have been a lifelong fan and assumed that if anyone could make changes, it would be Spielberg. Watching the Golden Globes and seeing Spielberg front-and-center wearing a “Time’s Up” pin shortly after my settlement made me especially eager to meet with him.




The condition CBS required of me was that I not speak about what happened. I really struggled with this and still do. Some online “posters” have called it hush money.

Headlines have called it a “secret settlement.’’ How was I to get paid? I have worked in this industry for close to 30 years. I faced a wrongful termination, the prospect of a three-to-five year lawsuit, and million-dollar legal fees for a war with a massive corporation.




And where would that war have been fought? According to the fine print in my contract with CBS, I was required to submit to a “confidential” arbitration, where all “proceedings will be closed to the public and confidential, and all records relating thereto will be permanently sealed.”

No judge, no jury, and no chance of anyone finding out what really happened (or so they hoped).







In the end, I found uneasy solace in the important conditions I imposed on CBS, and that I would get paid for at least some of my contract. I am still trying to make sense of how this could happen, especially in these times.

The last thing I want at this point in my life is to be in the news. I am recently married and very happily finishing my college degree at home in Boston. But I do feel it is my duty to respond honestly and thoroughly to CBS, Michael Weatherly, and Glenn Gordon Caron’s latest revisionist accounts.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/12/19/eliza-dushku-responds-what-happened-cbs-took-job-and-because-objected-being-sexually-harassed-was-fired/OCh7h0pwg4Aq7xfwOUasyO/story.html

Eliza Dushku still can't talk about her Bull sexual harassment scandal (http://time.com/5548474/eliza-dushku-metoo-mapplethorpe/)

The actress signed a non-disclosure agreement as part of CBS paying her a $9.5 million settlement over Michael Weatherly's sexual misconduct. Dushku wrote in detail about her experience for the Boston Globe (https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/12/19/eliza-dushku-responds-what-happened-cbs-took-job-and-because-objected-being-sexually-harassed-was-fired/OCh7h0pwg4Aq7xfwOUasyO/story.html) after Bull showrunner and Glenn Gordon Caron and Weatherly gave quotes to The New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/business/media/cbs-bull-weatherly-dushku-sexual-harassment.html). But Dushku fears that speaking further will result in CBS suing her over her settlement. So, in an interview with Time magazine, she must talk around her experience with sexual harassment. “I have never been this nervous for an interview,” she tells Time. “I’ve always been outspoken and honest. But I’m not used to being this vulnerable.” She also slams NDAs. "We’re talking in code," she says. "NDAs re-victimize people. They give more power to the powerful. And as the less powerful person, you have to live in someone else’s f*cked-up version of reality.”

Eliza Dushku Testifies to Congressional Committee about being "Fired in Silence" from CBS’ "Bull" After Claiming Sexual Harassment
by Ted Johnson
Nov. 16, 2021


Eliza Dushku testified before a congressional committee on Tuesday about being “fired in silence” from the CBS series "Bull", as she detailed her sexual harassment claims against co-star Michael Weatherly and then, after she complained, being let go from the series and forced into arbitration and a non-disclosure agreement.

The actress told members of the House Judiciary Committee that she was able to “break that silence” as she was responding to a congressional subpoena to testify.

“Countless others who are bound by arbitration are not so fortunate,” said Dushku, appearing virtually. She has gone public with some of her claims before.




The committee hearing was titled "Silenced: How Forced Arbitration Keeps Victims of Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment in the Shadow". It was held as lawmakers weigh new legislation to eliminate forced arbitration clauses in employment, consumer and civil rights cases.

The Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on the bill on Wednesday.




Before the committee, Dushku went into great detail about her claims of what happened on the set of "Bull". She said that in her first week on the job, she “found myself the brunt of crude, sexualized and lewd verbal assaults. I suffered near constant sexual harassment from my co-star. This was beyond anything I had experienced in my 30-year career.”

She didn’t refer to Weatherly by name in her opening statement, but detailed how he “frequently referred to me as ‘legs.’ He would smell me and leeringly look me up and down. Off script, in front of about 100 crew members and cast members, he once said that he would take me to his ‘rape’ van and use lube and long phallic things on me and take me over his knee and spank me like a little girl.”




She said that another time “he told me that his sperm were powerful swimmers.”

“These were not lines in the script,” she said. “They were incessant and demeaning and and directed at me in the middle of what was supposed to be a professional workplace.”

Dushku said that she “feared that if I pushed back or reacted strongly, my job could be at risk, or my professional reputation could be harmed.”




After one incident, when she was doing a scene in which she delivered a courtroom monologue, Dushku said that her co-star “shouted out that he and his buddy wanted to have a threesome with me and began mock penis jousting while the camera was still rolling. Then, as I walked off to my coffee break between scenes, a random male crew member sidled up to me at the food service table and whispered, ‘I am with Bull. I want to have a threesome with you too, Eliza.'”

She said that the experience made her “physically nauseous.”




She said that she confronted Weatherly and “specifically asked him to be my ally on set and tone down some of the sexualized comments directed at me, especially since he set the tone at the workplace.” She said that he responded that “no one is more respectful of women than me. I grew up with sisters.”

Dushku said that she found out later that after their conversation, Weatherly texted the head of CBS Studios that she had a “humor deficit” and that “he didn’t want me on the show.” Although the executive, who she has previously identified as David Stapf, told Weatherly that she “made the show better,” she was “fired the next day.”




Dushku said that as she looked into her legal options, she found that the mandatory arbitration clause in her contract “would be used to keep what had happened to me a secret and would protect CBS and the sexual harassment perpetrator who had blatantly retaliated against me for trying to stop the harassment in my workplace.”

“I was shocked to learn that I signed away my rights to a public forum before taking a job,” Dushku said.




Dushku told the committee that as her attorney pressed her claims, CBS handed over tapes “which included video of the actual harassment.”

“No other than my legal advisers at CBS has ever seen or will ever see those tapes,” she said. Later, she argued that if people could have seen the tapes, “accountability would have changed the outcome.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/eliza-dushku-congress-michael-weatherly-bull-cbs-1234875125/

Why CBS Paid Eliza Dushku to Settle Her Harassment Suit (https://collider.com/bull-cbs-eliza-dushku-settlement/)

After alleging mistreatment on the set of a hit series, this actress was met with retaliatory backlash.

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Dushku, 43, has become certified in psychedelic-assisted therapy (https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/eliza-dushku-has-been-busy-since-stepping-away-from-acting-in-2017.5730259/) and is working towards earning a master’s degree in counseling and clinical mental health.

Additionally, she and her husband are funding clinical trials and research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics for trauma care.

“I had the means to shift directions and choose a course in my life that focused on healing myself so that I could help heal others. I would be remiss if I didn’t now share the transformation and the peace and the passion that I have. This is just absolutely so clearly my real calling, my real purpose.”

Dushku’s new passion sparked from using therapeutic psychedelics herself to recover from past traumas.