Robert De Niro in London in 2020.Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Robert De Nirois dismissing his former assistant’s legal claims as “nonsense.”
During his testimony Monday at a civil trial in New York City, the 80-year-old actor addressed thegender-discrimination allegationsfrom the ex-assistant, Graham Chase Robinson, claiming that they are blown out of proportion.
“She is working for me; she has to do what I’m asking,” De Niro said on the stand during questioning from Robinson’s legal counsel. “It is not like I’m asking her to go out on the floor and scrape floors and go out and mop the floor. I didn’t do any of that and neither did [girlfriendTiffany Chen], so this is all nonsense.”
TheKillers of the Flower Moonstar was responding to a question about whether Chen told him that it felt like Robinson was living with the couple, during the time she was employed.
“[Tiffany] might have been saying stuff because she was annoyed, but she was annoyed because Robinson was disrespectful to her. Period. And that is unacceptable,” De Niro said.
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Robert De Niro arrives at federal court on Oct. 30, 2023, in New York City.David Dee Delgado/Getty
David Dee Delgado/Getty
De Niro also confirmed during his testimony that he had once called Robinson at 4:30 a.m., “when I cracked my back falling down the stairs,” but claimed that he didn’t regularly call her in the middle of the night.
“I didn’t call her at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when it actually happened,” he added of the injury.
De Niro was the first to take the stand at a federal courthouse in N.Y.C. on Monday. During questioning from his ex-assistant’s legal counsel, theOscarwinner agreed that Robinson “did anything and everything within the confines of her job“ but objected to “the implication that it is anything and everything in my personal life.”
When asked about tasks Robinson completed for De Niro’s girlfriend Chen, the actor became visibly upset, explaining he and Chen “work together.”
Robert De Niro and Tiffany Chen in New York City on June 7, 2023.ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images
Robinson was first hired as theGodfatherstar’s assistant at Canal Productions in 2008. Other tasks during her 11 years of employment that Robinson’s attorney Andrew Macurdy asked De Niro to clarify included running operations at his townhouse, helping to furnish an apartment and creatingValentine’s Daycards for his then-wife,Grace Hightower.
The latter, said De Niro, was “one of the few things [Robinson] was very good at.”
The release also alleged that Chen had “falsely accused Robinson of being in love” with De Niro and that he “then retaliated after Robinson complained, stripping Robinson of her job duties and driving her to resign” in April 2019.
The trial in New York will continue to feature texts and emails shared between De Niro and Chen, who in one message screenshot displayed in court called Robinson “a nasty b—-.” In another screenshot, Chen wrote that the plaintiff has an idea of “demented imaginary intimacy.”
After Robinson’s attorney Brent Hannafan claimed she “had to be on call all the time and call her he would,” the court was shown multiple email screenshots of Robinson letting De Niro know where she was on holidays and weekends.
The actor countered that his then-assistant’s assigned working hours “were civilized … You’re making it out like I controlled her.” The issue that led to problems with Robinson’s work performance, theIrishmanstar added, was that “instead of doing what she needed to do, she didn’t.”
“I believe in the honor system," De Niro stated. “I only value work if it is done right or else it reflects poorly on me.”
source: people.com
