Robert De Niro’s workplace discrimination trial continued today as Graham Chase Robinson, the actor’s former employee who brought the suit against him, officially took the stand.
- Off
- English
In a suit that’s been pending for years, Robinson—who started working as De Niro’s executive assistant in 2008 when she was 25 years old—alleged that for years the actor treated her as an “office wife” and subjected her to “gratuitous unwanted physical contact” and “sexually-charged comments,” and “assigned her stereotypically female duties like housework,” all while “insist[ing] that she be available to him around the clock.” She also alleged that the Killers Of The Flower Moon actor made her “scratch his back, button his shirts, fix his collars, tie his ties, and prod him awake when he was in bed,” among other things, even after she was promoted to the role of vice president of production and finance at his Canal Productions company in 2017. (You can read more background of the trial here.)
In her testimony, Robinson gave a little more detail on some of the tasks she allegedly had to perform for De Niro before she resigned. Per Variety, Robinson reiterated her claim that she had to be on call 24/7, 365 days a year, even when she was on vacation (despite De Niro’s previous claim that she kept regular hours (per Deadline)). During this time, she says she was expected to maintain the actor’s schedule, buy his meals, and keep track of his family’s birthdays and anniversaries so she could buy gifts when he forgot. One of these times, when the actor couldn’t locate a gift he had purchased, Robinson says he called her a bitch. “It was very demeaning [and] incredibly hurtful to hear that from your boss,” she said. She also alleged that he called her a bitch a second time when she asked to be removed as De Niro’s emergency contact after a small fire occurred in his townhouse. Apparently, the actor responded to this request by telling her she was “acting like a little bitch.”
Robinson also addressed allegations that De Niro repeatedly asked her to scratch his back. When she suggested he use a back scratcher instead, the actor allegedly said “I like the way you do it,” which Robinson said felt “creepy” and “disgusting.”
Elsewhere in her testimony, Robinson said that De Niro maintained a policy that allowed her to use unlimited SkyMiles (a previous point of contention), that he tried to get her to work on his townhouse because interior design was “a good skill for her to have” even though she wanted to work in production at the time, and that she actually resigned and said her last day would be in December 2018, but De Niro requested she continue working through the following summer as well as Christmas 2019 to assist with buying gifts. Robinson feared the actor could “destroy” her career if he didn’t give her a recommendation, which she requested upon her resignation, she said.
De Niro himself took the stand earlier this week, during which he denied many of his ex-employee’s allegations and even shouted “Shame on you, Chase Robinson!” at one point during approximately five hours of testimony.