Actress Eliza Dushku is setting the record straight about her firing from the CBS series “Bull,” detailing her complaints of sexual harassment against network star Michael Weatherly.
The circumstances of Dushku’s departure from the show were revealed last week along with the news that she got a $9.5 million payment from CBS.
In an essay published by The Boston Globe Wednesday, Dushku chronicles “what actually happened,” responding to details published by the New York Times on Dec. 13 about her short-lived time on the show.
“The narrative propagated by CBS, actor Michael Weatherly, and writer-producer Glenn Gordon Caron is deceptive and in no way fits with how they treated me on the set of the television show ‘Bull’ and retaliated against me for simply asking to do my job without relentless sexual harassment,” she writes in The Globe. “I did not over-react. I took a job and, because I did not want to be harassed, I was fired.”
She said the harassment was caught on camera and lasted “weeks” while she worked on the series.
“For weeks, Weatherly was recorded making sexual comments, and was recorded mimicking penis jousting with a male costar, this directly on the heels of the ‘threesome’ proposal, and another time referring to me repeatedly as ‘legs.’ ”
Dushku reveals she first tried to deal with Weatherly’s comments by speaking to him directly, framing her request to lay off the sexualized comments as a plea for help in setting a different tone on the set, asking him to “be my ally.”
She says it was later revealed that 40 minutes after their conversation, Weatherly texted CBS Television President David Stapf and “asked for what amounted to my being written off the show.”
She also explains that she had declined an interview for the Times story in order to honor the terms of her settlement with the network.
“I was under the impression that Weatherly and Caron would also not respond per our settlement,” she writes. “Instead, all commented to the Times in what amounted to more deflection, denial, and spin.”
Dushku also says that Weatherly, 50, tried to explain away his behavior as an attempt at humor in his response to the Times.
“That’s how a perpetrator rationalizes when he is caught,” she writes. “I do not want to hear that I have a ‘humor deficit’ or can’t take a joke. I did not over-react.”
She continued, describing herself as “uncomfortable, speechless, and frozen” in response to his behavior, which was in no way “playful, nor was it joking with two willing participants.”
“This was classic workplace harassment that became workplace bullying,” she writes. “Weatherly sexually harassed and bullied me day-in and day-out and would have gotten away with it had he not been caught on tape, and had the CBS lawyers not inadvertently shared the tapes with my counsel.”
She also explained that she had declined an interview for the Times story in order to honor the terms of her settlement with the network.
“I was under the impression that Weatherly and Caron would also not respond per our settlement,” she writes. “Instead, all commented to the Times in what amounted to more deflection, denial, and spin.”
Dushku’s settlement with CBS was discovered during an investigation into the culture at the network, which was prompted by sexual misconduct claims against former CBS chief Les Moonves. The New York Times has printed the early findings of that investigation.
CBS confirmed the existence of the settlement with Dushku in a statement last week to USA TODAY.
Contributing: Carly Mallenbaum
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