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Real Housewives kingpin Andy Cohen has confronted quite a lot of accusations and unsavory allegations of late, however a cocaine fueled favoritism and booze bullying lawsuit right this moment from Leah McSweeney has really raised his ire.
Late tonight after phrase of the New York filed motion seeped out, a consultant for Cohen instructed Deadline “the claims towards Andy are utterly false!”
By no means one to say his is or ever was a saint, the usually TMI Cohen additionally wasn’t notably stunned by Tuesday’s submitting by RH and Final Women Journey vet McSweeney towards him, Bravo, NBCUniversal, manufacturing firm Shed Media and numerous producers, I hear. In any case, McSweeney had brazenly threatened final 12 months to take the gang to courtroom when she had her personal employment discrimination motion with the Equal Employment Alternative Fee tossed out.
With that proviso and with the Bravoverse below such scrutiny proper now from a variety of lawsuits and legal professionals, the defendants in all probability hoped McSweeney wouldn’t go all scorched Earth on them like she did.
The former Actual Housewives of New York Metropolis star actually did shoot off a flamethrower in what she says was a definite effort to cease her from exercising her proper to stay sober.
Decrying a “rotted office tradition that uniquely relied on pressuring its staff to devour alcohol,” the swimsuit goes on to say that RH franchise EP Cohen “engages in cocaine use with Housewives and different Bravolebrities that he employs.” The submitting additionally alleges that Cohen flatters the “Housewives with whom he makes use of cocaine with extra favorable therapy and edits.”
Making it very private for McSweeney herself, the swimsuit states “defendants with the data that Ms. McSweeney struggled with alcohol use dysfunction, colluded together with her colleagues to strain Ms. McSweeney to drink, retaliated towards her when she needed to remain sober, and deliberately failed to supply cheap lodging that may support her efforts to remain sober and capable of carry out.”
Whereas unscripted exhibits have all the time attracted lawsuits like they entice narcissists, Bethenny Frankel’s self-described “actuality reckoning” warfare final 12 months towards the “sordid and darkish underbelly of NBC’s broadly consumed reality TV universe” really lit the cannons to fire at will. Taking purpose on the restrictive NDAs and manipulation and thoughts video games allegedly happening on unscripted exhibits, Frankel’s major lawyer Bryan Freedman has put Bravo and NBCU on authorized discover.
Even with NBCU promising stricter workplace conduct guidelines for its reality TV offerings, a slew of sexual assault and sexual harassment fits have adopted in latest months. Whereas NBCU isn’t the one media large with such issues (simply say the phrases Netflix and Love Is Blind round a courthouse or two, to see what I imply), they’re usually within the seedy highlight.
Previously three months alone, the authorized motion has gotten extra down and soiled than ever. Final October, Marco Vega, the butler on the second season of Peacock‘s The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, filed a lawsuit claiming he was sexually assaulted by forged members Brandi Glanville and Phaedra Parks. In December, RH alum Caroline Manzo claimed fellow Actual Housewives star Glanville sexually assaulted her through the Morocco filming of Peacock‘s The Actual Housewives Final Women Journey. Each Vega and Manzo’s fits had Bravo, Forest Productions, Warner Bros., NBCU, Shed Media and Peacock as defendants.
Final week, Glanville’s lawyer Freedman and Mark Geragos put NBCU, WBD and Shed Media on the scolding seat with a letter alleging Andy Cohen sexually harassed their client.
Citing the “abusive practices of the truth TV trade,” the legal professionals mentioned in a letter to the C-suites that an apparently drunken Cohen despatched Glanville a video in 2022 the place he instructed her that he, an brazenly homosexual man, needed her to observe him have intercourse with “one other Bravo star that night time,” aka Kate Chastain. Termed as an “extraordinary abuse of energy” by Glanville, the allegations quickly noticed Cohen taking to social media to say it was all a joke that Glanville was in on. On Twitter/X, Cohen acknowledged “it was completely inappropriate and I apologize.”
That wasn’t sufficient for Glanville and her legal professionals, who quickly afterwards on February 23 requested Comcast CEO Brian Roberts to “do the correct factor” and hearth Cohen. Glanville herself says she nonetheless hasn’t obtained a private sorry from Cohen.
Time is ticking.
