PLATELL’S PEOPLE: If De Niro was such a monster, why did his PA stay with him for 11 years?
Forget the blood, sweat and tears in Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This week Robert De Niro has faced the toughest battle of his life: a ‘gender discrimination’ claim from ex-employee Graham Chase Robinson — who earned $300,000 a year.
In the culmination of a four-year legal battle, Robinson says in her $12 million lawsuit against the Hollywood legend that she suffered ‘severe emotional distress and reputational damage’.
Though he made zero sexual advances to her, he had the audacity to ask her to scratch his back, twice.
De Niro was so demanding, he even called her at 6.30am one Sunday to get access to his computer, and asked her to order him a martini from Nobu at 11pm.
Crikey, most working women on a fraction of that would have thought these trivial requests part of the job.
This week Robert De Niro (L) has faced the toughest battle of his life: a ‘gender discrimination’ claim from ex-employee Graham Chase Robinson (R) — who earned $300,000 a year
Robinson, now 41, further claims the Meet The Fockers star once ‘yelled at her’ after she failed to wake him for an important meeting.
Despite that, he promoted her to vice-president of his company. Many would have sacked her.
Countersuing Robinson for $6 million, De Niro accuses his former PA of transferring $300,000-worth of Air Miles to her personal account, splashing out on personal items, food and travel. (Some of it was on Ubers — didn’t she know he was a taxi driver?)
All I know is the 21st century is a horrible time to be a man
Robinson has done her best to portray De Niro, 80, as a tyrant.
Yet she was not a downtrodden lackey, but a senior staff member who suffered the occasional ill-timed request — on a salary beyond most people’s dreams.
Why work for him for 11 years if he was such a monster?
To present herself as some kind of #MeToo victim and him as Harvey Weinstein for a back-scratch makes a mockery of real sufferers of sexual violence.
As De Niro said in court: ‘It was never any disrespect or lewdness or any kind of weirdness . . Shame on you, Chase Robinson!’
The court will decide who is right.All I know is the 21st century is a horrible time to be a man.
A good fellow promotes an ambitious woman, rewards her for loyalty, then the little focker tries to shake him down for a fortune. It’s enough to leave you furious at the ingratitude.
Excitement over the release of the final Beatles song Now And Then, created from a demo tape of John Lennon’s. Having heard it, even a Beatles fan like me knows it’s less Strawberry Fields Forever, more limp, half-eaten raspberry trifle left out the fridge too long.
A pointed comment
In WhatsApp messages released to the Covid Inquiry, we learn Dominic Cummings wanted to ‘personally handcuff’ Helen MacNamara — creepy — and escort her out of No 10 as he could no longer deal with ‘dodging stilettoes from that c***’.
Especially perplexing as refined career civil servant Ms MacNamara, in drab, grey suits and flat shoes, looks like she’s never worn a stiletto in her life.
With dwindling testosterone, a flagging libido, thinning hair, exhaustion and insomnia, 49-year-old Robbie Williams claims that he’s going through the ‘manopause’. Is there no female condition that soppy men won’t appropriate to justify their lack of performance in the bedroom?
They’ll be telling us they’ve suffered years of pre-menstrual tension next, because they’re married to a woman.
A suit as wrinkled as a rhino
The orphaned baby rhino in its warm coat that Charles petted on a trip to Nairobi National Park was better dressed than him
First he’s in Kenya wringing his hands over colonial Britain’s ‘abhorrent and unjustifiable’ violence, then he pops up on video addressing the UK AI summit, warning of the risks of artificial intelligence.
Now we learn King Charles will make the opening speech at the COP28 climate-change summit in Dubai.
Didn’t he vow to stop meddling in politics when he ascended the throne? The least he could have done was apologise for his ill-fitting, crumpled old suits.
The orphaned baby rhino in its warm coat that Charles petted on a trip to Nairobi National Park was better dressed than him.
A senior Hamas official calls for the ‘annihilation’ of Israel and vows to repeat the atrocities of October 7 ‘again and again’, claiming his terrorists did not want to harm civilians.
Try telling that to Israeli forensic teams still trying to identify the remains of massacred innocents: a tiny bag containing the body of a dead baby ‘with a footprint clearly visible on its neck’. Only one thing needs to be ‘annihilated’: the butchers of Hamas.
Fifteen long years after Victoria Beckham launched her fashion company, it’s finally making a profit, having been bailed out to the tune of £30 million by the Beckham empire over the years.
Well done Posh, yet your latest offerings of £150 T-shirts, £2,000 frocks, £690 cardigans and £95 for lace tights leaves most of us fashion-loving women thinking . . . too posh for me.
Ta-ra to Zara – at last
Zara McDermott blames the viewers, insisting they didn’t take her seriously after her Love Island past
Having been ignominiously voted into Strictly’s dance-off three weeks in a row, and saved by the judges twice, former reality TV contestant turned minor BBC documentary-maker Zara McDermott blames the viewers, insisting they didn’t take her seriously after her Love Island past.
Not true, sweetie: you are a rubbish dancer and not even the Beeb’s blatant attempts to keep its employees in could save you.
Armistice Day test for the Met
The threat of a million marchers descending on London for Armistice Day next weekend has the potential to drown out the sacred two minutes’ silence in which we pause to mark our glorious dead — and poses an existential threat for the police.
If the Met doesn’t control the disrespectful elements of the crowds on our streets, we will lose faith in them for ever.
Marks & Spencer issues a grovelling apology over its Christmas ad after hysterical people claim burning red, green and silver paper hats in a fireplace refers to the Palestinian flag. And people picketed the store this year to protest it ‘collaborating with the racist settler state of Israel’.
The only way to stop anti-Semites destroying beloved institutions like M&S — co-founded by a British Jew — is to vote with our wallets. You can pre-order their turkey crown, lobster and prawn cocktails. I’ve just bought mine.
First Netflix resurrected Princess Diana as a ghost in The Crown. Now it has broadcast Mohamed Fayed’s claim that she was pregnant by his son Dodi. This despite a coroner stating that it was untrue and a friend saying Diana had her period days before the crash. A crowning shame.
Westminster Wars
Mystery surrounds why Keir Starmer apparently removed his poppy on his jacket before posting a message in support of ‘Islamophobia Awareness Month’. Why would a poppy offend Muslims when 5.5 million fought on the Allied side in World War II and nearly 1.5 million died in combat?
During Rishi’s love-in with Elon Musk at the AI summit, the X/Twitter boss predicted eventually no one will need to work
Jewish people, meanwhile, wonder when the Labour leader will raise awareness of their persecution. Police in London have recorded a 1,353 per cent increase in anti-Semitic attacks since October 7, compared to a 140 per cent rise in attacks against Muslims.
During Rishi’s love-in with Elon Musk at the AI summit, the X/Twitter boss predicted eventually no one will need to work. The PM could have told him more than 10 million working-age Brits don’t have jobs. Who pays for their benefits? Those of us still working and paying taxes.
Her popularity plummeted following an affair and ditching her husband of 22 years, but now mum of nine Amanda Owen, the ‘Yorkshire Shepherdess’, is back with hubby Clive for a new TV series to try to rescue her reputation. Who’s being fleeced here? Viewers or poor cuckolded Clive, who’s already been put out to pasture by his wife?
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