Actor Robert De Niro shouted \u201cShame on you!\u201d as he testified in a New York courtroom, directing the comments toward his former executive assistant and vice president who seeks millions of dollars after accusing her onetime boss of being abusive. Graham Chase Robinson watched with her lawyers on Tuesday while De Niro\u2019s anger built as attorney Andrew Macurdy pelted him with some tabloid-style accusations his client made about De Niro\u2019s behaviour toward Robinson as she served his needs, large and small, from 2008 until several months into 2019.<\/p>\n
Robinson, 41, seeks USD 12 million in damages for emotional distress and reputational harm that she claims has left her jobless and unable to recover from the trauma of working for De Niro. She was making USD 300,000 annually when she quit, frustrated by her interactions with De Niro\u2019s girlfriend and the effect she believed the girlfriend was having on the actor. The jury is also considering evidence pertaining to a lawsuit De Niro filed against Robinson in which he claimed that she stole things from him, including 5 million points that could be used for airline flights. De Niro is seeking the return of three years of Robinson\u2019s salary.<\/p>\n
Macurdy asked De Niro whether it was true that he sometimes urinated as he spoke with Robinson on the telephone. \u201cThat\u2019s nonsense,\u201d De Niro answered. \u201cYou got us all here for this?\u201d Macurdy told De Niro he called Robinson \u201cb**** to her face.\u201d \u201cI was never abusive, ever,\u201d the actor snapped back, though he conceded that he might have used the word in conversations with her. And the claim that he told Robinson he preferred that she scratch his back rather than using a back scratching device drew another angry rebuke from De Niro, who said it might have happened once or twice, but \u201cnever was with disrespect or lewdness.\u201d Finally, he angrily looked toward Robinson and shouted: \u201cShame on you, Chase Robinson!\u201d Quickly, he blurted an apology in a quieter voice, as he glanced toward Judge Lewis J Liman.<\/p>\n
The actor admitted that there were no written rules for those who worked for him because, he said, he relied on the \u201crules of common sense.\u201d He said he promoted Robinson with the title of vice president of his company, Canal Productions, at her request but he added that her duties didn\u2019t change. At times, De Niro would flatly deny something, only to later admit that there might be truth to it in a manner different than how it was suggested. Asked if he once yelled at Robinson when she was in Europe and had failed to call and remind him of an important meeting in California, De Niro answered that he hadn\u2019t, only to quickly add: \u201cI raised my voice.\u201d \u201cI got angry that one time,\u201d he said. \u201cI berated her. I wasn\u2019t abusive. I was upset.\u201d \u201cYou called her a brat,\u201d Macurdy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could have,\u201d De Niro answered. Sometimes, De Niro sounded like he wanted to leave the witness stand. \u201cI don\u2019t have time for this,\u201d he said at one point. He rejected Macurdy\u2019s suggestion that he sued Robinson before she sued him because he wanted publicity. \u201cIt draws attention to me. It\u2019s the last thing I wanted to do,\u201d De Niro said. De Niro, 80, has won two Oscars in a six-decade movie career that has featured memorable roles in films including \u201cThe Deer Hunter\u201d and \u201cRaging Bull\u201d. Currently, he is in Martin Scorsese\u2019s \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Actor Robert De Niro shouted \u201cShame on you!\u201d as he testified in a New York courtroom, directing the comments toward\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":9479,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2623,2621,2622,508,1855],"class_list":["post-9478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-abuses","tag-graham-chase-robinson","tag-harassment","tag-lawsuit","tag-robert-de-niro"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}