Robert De Niro‘s former assistant on Friday cited the actor’s earlier courtroom outbursts as proof he often yelled at her during her employment.
“He yelled at me two days ago,” Graham Chase Robinson testified in front of a New York jury.
Last week, De Niro provided fervent testimony in the ongoing discrimination trial that has seen the Oscar winner accused of gender bias and workplace retaliation. De Niro, who The Associated Press said appeared “grumpy” on the stand, shouted, “Shame on you, Chase Robinson,” amid other complaints that the allegations made by his former staffer were “nonsense.”
In 2019, De Niro and his company Canal Productions had sued Robinson, claiming she stole five million Delta SkyMiles from company cards and watched “astounding hours of TV shows” while at her job. Robinson countersued De Niro, 80, in 2021 for US$12 million (over C$16.5 million) over alleged violations of the New York City Human Rights Law.
Robert De Niro in a courtroom sketch on Oct. 31, 2023. De Niro testified against an ex-employee who has accused the actor of gender discrimination and causing reputational damage.
Elizabeth Williams via AP
Robinson was employed by De Niro from 2008 to 2019. When she quit her job, she was Canal’s vice-president of production and finance and reportedly earned a salary of US$300,000 (about C$416,500).
Her testimony began on Thursday. People magazine reported that Robinson said she functioned as an “on-call” assistant, and disputed De Niro’s testimony that he only ever called her during “civilized hours.”
She said De Niro and his family would regularly call the “bat phone,” meaning her work cellphone, after office hours.
“Whenever it rang, whether it was 5:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night, you would pick it up, and that is Monday through Sunday,” Robinson testified. “It didn’t matter if you were in New York and the family was in Doha … you picked it up regardless of the time.”
Robinson said De Niro and his family would call her “five to 10 times a day,” every day. She added that De Niro was often “frustrated” and would be heard “yelling and screaming” over the phone.
“When I would go to a doctor’s appointment, he would call me. When I would go for a run, he would call me,” Robinson claimed. “When I was taking my mother to the emergency room and let him know, he called me. When I told him I wasn’t going to be available for my grandmother’s funeral, he called me twice.”
The back-scratching allegations
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Some of the most buzzed-about testimony from the trial has revolved around allegations that De Niro often made Robinson scratch his back when he himself could not reach an itch.
Last week, when Robinson’s lawyers inquired whether the actor had ever asked his employee to scratch his back, De Niro sarcastically replied, “You got me!” He said he only ever asked Robinson to relieve an itch on two occasions, though never with “disrespect or lewdness.”
Robinson’s recollection is different. During her testimony, she alleged De Niro made the request on numerous occasions and once told her “I like the way you do it” when she suggested he buy a back-scratching device.
She called the requests to scratch his back “creepy” and “disgusting.”
‘A very single white female’
On the stand, Robinson also denied ever having any romantic feelings for De Niro. Last week, De Niro’s girlfriend Tiffany Chen told the court Robinson had “imaginary intimacy” with the actor, according to Vanity Fair. Chen called Robinson “a very single white female.”
FILE – Robert De Niro and Tiffany Chen at the opening night of the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on June 7, 2023.
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
For her part, Robinson has accused Chen of pushing her from the job at Canal because she was jealous of Robinson’s working relationship with De Niro.
Chen confirmed in her testimony that she had pressured De Niro to fire Robinson.
In May, De Niro and Chen celebrated the birth of their daughter, Gia Virginia Chen De Niro, who is De Niro’s seventh child.
Berating and name-calling
Robinson testified De Niro twice called her a “b—h” while she was employed by him. She said the name-calling was “demeaning” and “incredibly hurtful to hear that from your boss,” Vanity Fair reported.
According to Robinson, one such instance was when a small fire occurred at De Niro’s townhouse. Variety said Robinson testified she was the emergency contact for the security company ADT, which arrived at the scene. She claimed when she asked De Niro to remove her as the contact, he told her to stop “acting like a little b—h.”
Her testimony continued, and Robinson alleged De Niro again called her the derogatory name in 2017 when he could not find Christmas gifts he’d purchased. Robinson said De Niro was inebriated at the time.
During his own testimony last week, De Niro confessed he had on occasion called Robinson names.
“Yeah, fine, I berated her,” De Niro said, citing an instance where Robinson allegedly did not wake him up in time for a meeting.
“I wasn’t abusive. I was annoyed,” he maintained.
He added that he may have also called Robinson “petulant,” “snippy” and a “f—ing spoiled brat.”
Robinson told the jury she worried De Niro would “destroy” her career after she quit in 2019. She said she has not been able to find work in the four years since, despite applying for 638 jobs, the AP reported.
“I was having an emotional and mental breakdown. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. Couldn’t run. I was overwhelmed,” Robinson said. “I felt like I hit rock bottom.”
The trial is expected to last another week.
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