CBS's $9.5 Million Settlement With Eliza Dushku Reveals How Poorly It Handles Sexual Harassment Allegations
LatestA $9.5 million settlement between Eliza Dushku and CBS came to light when the network hired a team of investigators to look into any overarching culture issues at the company, according to a new report from the New York Times. The settlement, according to the investigators’ notes, which the Times states it reviewed, points to a tendency at the company to ignore signs of harassment and fail to seek justice on behalf of victims, choosing instead to “protect itself.”
In 2017, Dushku was brought on the CBS procedural Bull, starring NCIS’s Michael Weatherly, for a three-episode arc. Writer and producer Glenn Gordon Caron told Dushku he wanted her character to be “more than a love interest,” according to the Times, and had plans for her become a full-time cast member. But what Dushku quickly found was an environment where rape and sex jokes and comments about her appearance from Weatherly were allowed to fly, and sometimes encouraged other members of the cast and crew to join in.
Notes from the investigators’ interview with Dushku (who did not comment for the Times’ story and is prohibited from talking about her time at CBS as a result of her settlement agreement) reveal that Weatherly made comments that made Dushku uncomfortable on set. Once he “said in front of the cast and crew that he would bend her over his leg and spank her.”