Award-winning producer Scott Rudin has been accused of "unhinged" abusive behavior in a new exposé.
A piece in The Hollywood Reporter published Wednesday quotes former employees of Rudin's, the producer who has achieved EGOT status by winning an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony during his career, as describing the alleged abuse they experienced working for him. For example, Rudin allegedly once became so angry at an assistant who wasn't able to get him a seat on a sold-out flight that he "smashed an Apple computer monitor" on his hand, leaving the assistant bleeding and forced to head to the emergency room.
"It was a very intense environment, but that just felt different," former assistant Andrew Coles told the Reporter. "It was a new level of unhinged — a level of lack of control that I had never seen before in a workplace."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Latest Videos FromThe Week
This was just one of a number of alleged incidents described in the article. A former executive coordinator for Rudin's company also recalled him throwing "a glass bowl at [a colleague]" and an HR person leaving "in an ambulance due to a panic attack," while a recent assistant said he threw a "big potato" at his head. Yet another former staffer, who served as Rudin's executive assistant, said he left the industry entirely after the mistreatment, which allegedly included Rudin throwing a stapler at an assistant and calling him a "retard."
"Every day was exhausting and horrific," that former executive assistant said, while the former executive coordinator also said, "Everyone just knows he's an absolute monster."
The Reporter notes that Rudin's "tantrums" have been "documented going back four decades" but that despite this, his "behavior has continued unabated" in Hollywood. Rudin, who has produced films like No Country for Old Men and The Social Network, didn't offer a comment for the article on any of the allegations. Read the full piece at The Hollywood Reporter.
