Gabrielle Union Files Discrimination Complaint Against ‘AGT’ Producers, Says NBC Chief Paul Telegdy Threatened Her Over Whistleblowing

Gabrielle Union has filed a harassment complaint in the state of California against the producers and network behind “America’s Got Talent,” and raised a new accusation that NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy threatened her over speaking out against racism on set.

Union, through power attorney Bryan Freedman, filed the complaint with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, naming producers FremantleMedia and Simon Cowell’s Syco as well as NBCUniversal. DFEH complaints are often precursors to lawsuits.

“When Gabrielle Union informed NBC of racially offensive conduct during the taping of ‘America’s Got Talent,’ NBC did not ‘stand’ with her in ‘outrage at acts of racism,’” Freedman said, invoking the company’s recent support of #BlackLivesMatter.  “Instead, NBC did not care enough to either promptly investigate Ms. Union’s complaints or even ask HR to get involved. Rather, NBC stood against her and directed its “outrage” at Ms. Union for whistleblowing about the racially offensive conduct she experienced while working for NBC on America’s Got Talent.”

Freeman continued that “in sharp contrast to NBC’s recent statement on race, what was truly an “outrage” was the fact that Paul Telegdy, Chairman of NBC Entertainment, actually threatened Ms. Union in an attempt to silence her from telling the truth about racist actions that took place on the show. There is no place for this type of racial bullying in the workplace, and it is going to take more than a Tweet from NBC to demonstrate that NBC intends to create an environment free from racism.”

In a Variety cover story last week, Union detailed for the first time accounts of racist incidents and lack of efficient reporting and accountability from all companies involved in producing the reality competition series. In response to the story, the trio of producers disclosed initial findings of an investigation into Union’s complaints, saying they fond room for process improvement but did not discover any racial bias.

NBCUniversal, Fremantle and Cowell had no immediate comment on the matter. The news was first reported by journalist Yashar Ali.

More to come …