Michael Chabon 'Ashamed' He Didn't Speak Up After Witnessing Scott Rudin's 'Abusive Behavior'

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Author and screenwriter Michael Chabon has broken his silence on Scott Rudin, saying that he is “ashamed” for not speaking up about Rudin’s “abusive behavior” toward staffers after 20 years of working with the EGOT winner.

Though Chabon said he did not witness many of the stories that have been described in the recent Hollywood Reporter exposé and elsewhere, writing that he never saw Rudin use “vulgar or demeaning epithets” or cause physical injury. But he said he often witnessed Rudin’s outbursts and anger and acted as though nothing had happened. He acknowledges that it does not exonerate him for not speaking out, and that he “knew enough.”

“Reading the accounts of Scott Rudin’s present and former employees, of the abuse they suffered and were expected to endure at Scott Rudin Productions, has broken my heart,” Chabon wrote in a blog post Friday. “In the roughly twenty years that I regularly collaborated with Scott, I worked with and got to know many of his employees – a generation of them – from the VPs, to the researchers, to the assistants who worked the phones. I remember Kevin Graham-Caso – he was a sweetheart – and it was a gut-punch to learn, from his brother David’s recent video, about his suicide, following years of struggle with PTSD.”

TheWrap has reached out to a rep for Rudin for a request for comment.

Chabon had worked with Rudin dating back to the 2000 film adaptation of one of his novels “Wonder Boys.” He also collaborated with him on “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” and Rudin once held the rights to “Yiddish Policemen” and Chabon’s biggest work, “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.”

Chabon’s statement comes after an April 7 THR article in which former assistants and staffers accused Rudin of physical and mental abuse, including smashing a computer monitor on an assistant’s hand and throwing objects. Since then, Rudin has announced that he would be stepping back from his Broadway productions and film and streaming projects, which include the revival of “The Music Man” and five different A24 films.

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