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Eliza Dushku Was Written Off Bull After Complaining About Michael Weatherly’s Sexual Comments

December 14, 2018 | Posted by Jeremy Thomas
Eliza Dushku

Eliza Dushku’s arc of CBS’ Bull came to an end when she was written off after complaining about inappropriate comments by star Michael Weatherly. The New York Times reports that Dushku, who joined the show late in season one during March 2017, lodged a formal complaint after Weatherly reportedly made several sexually-oriented comments in relation to her. Despite the fact that she was set to become a series regular, she was written off of the show and received a $9.5 million settlement as compensation. CBS has confirmed the settlement.

The news comes out of CBS’ investigation into sexual misconduct by former CEO Les Moonves. The investigation discovered that Dushku complained that in a series of on-set incidents, Weatherly made demeaning comments about her appearance (such as “Here comes legs”), joked about a threesome and made a ad-libbed joke about taking Dushku’s caracter to his “rape van” while cameras were rolling. He also suggested at one point in front of the cast and crew that he would would bend her over his leg and spank her.

Dushku told the investigators who were looking into the settlement that she felt “disgusting and violated” after the threesome incident, in which he responded to an in-character gesture where Dushku’s character held up three fingers by suggesting she wanted a threesome with him and another male cast member. She added that as the lead star, his behavior spread to the crew and a crew member approached her at one point, saying with a chuckle, “I’m with Bull” and said he wanted a threesome too.

Dushku reportedly spoke with a producer and went with the producer to confront Weatherly on set about the behavior. The investigators say that Weatherly allegedly texted CBS TV Studios president David Stapf afterward, saying that he wanted to talk about Dushku’s sense of humor. Within days of the conversation between Dushku and Weatherly, Dushku was written out of the show and plans to make her a series regular were scuttled. Producer Glenn Gordon Caron told Dushku that “didn’t know how to write” her into the show anymore.

Dushku entered into mediation with CBS and the company agreed to a $9.5 million confidential settlement, which is about the amount that she would have earned as a regular cast member for four seasons. CBS’ chief compliance officer Mark Engstrom was involved in the mediations and, according to the investigation, gave outtakes from the production to mediators believing they would help CBS’ cause as they captured Dushku swearing. However, the plan backfired because the outtakes were a “gold mine” for Dushku and “actually captured some of the harassment on film.”

Weatherly said in a statement to the Times, “During the course of taping our show, I made some jokes mocking some lines in the script. When Eliza told me that she wasn’t comfortable with my language and attempt at humor, I was mortified to have offended her and immediately apologized. After reflecting on this further, I better understand that what I said was both not funny and not appropriate and I am sorry and regret the pain this caused Eliza.” The statement addresses many of the allegations as follows:

The spanking comment: “I ad-libbed a joke, a classic Cary Grant line from ‘Charade’ or ‘Philadelphia Story,’ and that meant not at all that that was an action I wanted to take.”

The rape van joke: The scripted line in that scene was, ‘Hey, young lady, step into my windowless van,’” he said. “I didn’t particularly like that line, so I joked, in order to highlight how distasteful the emphasis of the line was, about an ‘r. van,’ a rape van. Which, in retrospect, was not a good idea.”

On Dushku’s removal: “It’s my recollection that I didn’t tell anyone how they should do their job regarding the hiring or firing of anybody.”