Eliza Dushku got $9.5M after harassment by Michael Weatherly
Actress Eliza Dushku accused 'Bull' co-star Michael Weatherly of sexual harassment and was written off the series before she was granted a secret $9.5 million settlement from CBS, The New York Times reports.
Actress Eliza Dushku said she was fired from the CBS series “Bull” after she accused her co-star Michael Weatherly of sexual harassment.
The shocking revelation comes just days after The New York Times reported the 37-year-old was written off the series before she was granted a secret $9.6 million settlement from CBS.
The star signed on to the series in March 2017 for a three-episode arc with plans to become a series regular, but alleged that Weatherly, 50, started making inappropriate comments to and about her in front of castmates and crew members not long after she began work on the show.
“Weatherly harassed me from early on,” Dushku, 37, wrote in an op-ed for the Boston Globe on Wednesday. “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.’”
Reps for CBS and Weatherly did not immediately return Fox News' request for comment.
Dushku claimed that for weeks, Weatherly was recorded making sexual comments, as well as “mimicking penis jousting with a male co-star” while also frequently referring to the actress as “legs.”
“He regularly commented on my ‘ravishing’ beauty, following up with audible groans, oohing and aahing,” explained Dushku. “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.’”
Dushku also revealed Weatherly had allegedly bragged about his friendship with fallen CBS chief executive Les Moonves. The 69-year-old resigned in September after 12 women accused him of sexual misconduct.
Dushku wrote that Weatherly "wielded this special friendship [with Moonves] as an amulet and, as I can see now, as a threat."
Dushku added she had to endure Weatherly’s behavior for up to 12 hours a day for weeks while filming the series.
“This was classic workplace harassment that became workplace bullying,” she explained. “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.”
According to Dushku, she never received an apology from Weatherly. Instead, she was fired shortly after she attempted to resolve the issue on her own by speaking with 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,’" she said.
The actress said she found "uneasy solace" that she "would get paid for at least some of my contract" and that as part of her settlement, CBS was required to “designate an individual trained in sexual harassment compliance to monitor Weatherly and the show in general."
"I am still trying to make sense of how this could happen, especially in these times … But I do feel it is my duty to respond honestly and thoroughly to CBS, Michael Weatherly, and ['Bull' showrunner] Glenn Gordon Caron’s latest revisionist accounts," she wrote.