CBS Paid Eliza Dushku A $9.5 Million Settlement Over Michael Weatherly Sexually Harassing Her

December 14, 2018 / Posted by:

This morning, that giant CBS eye got an edible arrangement from the NBC peacock as a thank you for making everyone temporarily forget the Matt Lauer-lead sleaziness and grossness that has gone down there. Because of the alleged Harvey Weinstein of television, Les MoonvesCharlie Rose, that 60 Minutes producer, and the showrunner of NCIS: New Orleans, CBS seems to be a cesspool of ickiness, and that cesspool got bigger last night when The New York Times reported that Eliza Dushku was written off the show Bull after complaining about how its star Michael Weatherly and others made gross sexual comments toward her on the set. CBS ended up paying her $9.5 million, which is roughly what she would’ve made if she stayed on the show. Not-So-Fun Fact: Bull is loosely based on Dr. Phil, and Dr. Phil is a producer on the show. See, nothing good comes from Dr. Phil!

The New York Times discovered CBS’ settlement to Eliza Dushku while looking into the report from a law firm that the network hired to look into the sexual harassment accusations against Les Moonves. Eliza signed on for three episodes (at $35,000 an episode) of Bull in March 2017, and the plan was for her to become a full-time cast member, which would’ve paid her much, much more. In the report, Eliza told investigator that things on set started good, but then Michael Weatherly quickly became the stereotypical creepy perv in a sexual harassment PSA by saying, “Here comes legs,” when she showed up in a suit. Eliza also claimed that while in front of the cast and crew, Michael said that he was going to bend her over and spank her. Michael claimed he was ad-libbing a Cary Grant line.

Another time, Eliza said that she threw up three fingers while shooting a scene, and Michael suggested that she should have a threesome with him and another actor. And while shooting a scene involving a windowless van, Michael told Eliza that he wanted to take her to his “rape van.” When talking to investigators, Michael claimed he was responding to Eliza in character, and admitted that his rape van “joke” was a misfire. Because Michael Weatherly said gross shit to Eliza in front of everyone and was the star of the show, crew members took his lead. She said that one crew member said he wanted to have a threesome with her too. All of that left Eliza feeling violated and uncomfortable.

Eliza took her complaints to the show’s producer Glenn Gordon Caron, and after that talk, she agreed to confront Michael Weatherly. After her talk with Michael, she told her agents that she had a feeling she was going to get fired. She was right. Even though Glenn previously told Eliza about his plans to expand her character, he told her that he didn’t know how to write her into the show anymore. Michael denied that he got Eliza pink-slipped, and Glenn denied that she was fired for complaining about being sexually harassed.

Eliza was thinking of filing a lawsuit, but to avoid a lawsuit, CBS went into meditation with her. Mark Engstrom, the chief compliance officer for CBS, thought he had Eliza’s number when he gladly gave up outtakes from Bull. The outtakes showed Eliza, prepare to GASP your lungs out, cursing on set. A lady cursing? I NEVER! But Mark’s smug “I got you” face quickly turned into a whoopsie face after the outtakes proved that Eliza was telling the truth. Bitch played himself.

The strategy backfired. The outtakes were a “gold mine” for Ms. Dushku, the lawyers wrote, because they “actually captured some of the harassment on film.”

In January of this year, CBS ended up paying Eliza Dushku $9.5 million, approximately what she would have made for four seasons on Bull. Around that time, Eliza came out with a disgustingly disturbing story, alleging that she was molested at the age of 12 by stunt coordinator Joel Kramer on the set of True Lies.

Eliza confirmed the settlement with CBS to the NYT, but because of the terms of that settlement, she couldn’t talk about her time on the show. Michael Weatherly burped up this statement:

“During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script. When Eliza told me that she wasn’t comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza.”

The law firm who investigated Les Moonves said in their report that CBS had a history of protecting itself and didn’t really give a fuck about victims.

So let’s see… CBS saw proof that Michael Weatherly sexually harassed another employee while on the job, and the show Bull is still on, and he’s still the star of it. That puts the Bull in bullshit. But now that this story is out, I’m sure CBS will go into full damage control mode and fire Michael Weatherly, and say that they are pleased to announce that they are replacing him with Kevin Spacey!

Pic: CBS

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