{"id":181339,"date":"2023-11-05T12:31:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-05T12:31:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/?p=181339"},"modified":"2023-11-05T12:31:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T12:31:31","slug":"the-evidence-from-robert-de-niros-court-battle-with-ex-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hotworldreport.com\/world-news\/the-evidence-from-robert-de-niros-court-battle-with-ex-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"The evidence from Robert De Niro's court battle with ex-assistant"},"content":{"rendered":"
‘The balls, the nerve, the chutzpah, the sense of entitlement… who the f**k does she think she is?’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those are the words Robert De Niro hammered furiously in a text message to his girlfriend in 2019 after his assistant Chase Robinson demanded a generous severance package and press release as she left her job of 11 years alleging mistreatment.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
How flabbergasted he must be now then that the pair are in court, airing their dirty laundry, as a jury decides if he did indeed discriminate against her because she is a woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robinson is suing for $12million, claiming the legendary actor berated and belittled her despite promoting her and offering a generous $300,000-a-year salary the likes of which most assistants can only dream of.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The texts are buried in a trove of emails and correspondence between De Niro, Chen\u00a0and Robinson as they tried to negotiate her departure from the actor’s employ in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Chase Robinson, spotted today at Manhattan Federal Court. She is suing former boss Robert DeNiro<\/p>\n
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Robert De Niro and his girlfriend Tiffany Chen were also concerned with Chase Robinson’s spending<\/p>\n
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In text messages to his girlfriend in July 2019, Robert De Niro fumes over his assistant Chase Robinson’s list of demands after she handed in her notice effective immediately\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In an email to De Niro, his girlfriend Tiffany Chen, furious that Robinson blamed the friction on their relationship, said: ‘This b***ch needs to be put in her f*****g place’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, they are at the heart of the civil case currently unfolding in a Manhattan courtroom where today, De Niro lost his cool this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Shame on you!’ he screamed at Robinson earlier in the week after being roasted by her attorneys.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, he has admitted berating her, calling her a ‘brat’ and occasionally a ‘b***ch’, and confessed to calling her at her grandmother’s funeral to ask her to book his son a bus ticket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When confronted with the latter transgression, De Niro replied: ‘So?’\u00a0<\/p>\n
His other alleged offenses; asking Robinson to scratch his back and having her order him a martini from Nobu at 11pm via Uber Eats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘You got me!’ De Niro, dripping in sarcasm, said in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robinson testified about his ‘creepy’ requests that she scratch his back – ‘I like the way you do it’ – and becoming frustrated at having to run errands for not just him, but also his girlfriend and children.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The actor would forget anniversaries and birthdays, she complained, and she was at his beck and call ’24\/7, 365 days a year.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the courtroom theatrics have been entertaining, the juiciest dialogue comes from the evidence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It is there that the root of the tension appears to lie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Robinson, haughty after convincing her boss to name her president of a production studio, started refusing to perform tasks she believed were beneath her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chen, the mother of De Niro’s seventh child and in no mood to take cues from her famous partner’s flunkies, believed Robinson had a crush.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘She thinks she’s your wife. I saw it from the beginning,’ she told De Niro in one text.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In court this week, Chen described an ‘imagined intimacy’ she held says Robinson held for her partner, labeling her a ‘psychotic single woman’.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘She was very strange from the beginning and always uncomfortable to be around.<\/p>\n
‘She was a hot mess. Her schedule was off all the time,’ she said, blasting her as ‘mean-spirited’ and ‘bitchy.’\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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April 2019: Robinson blames the tense relationship on Tiffany. She refers to problems with ‘Grace’ – a presumed reference to De Niro’s former partner, with whom she said she also had tension\u00a0<\/p>\n
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By July 2019, Robinson was making demands. She said they’d been agreed upon months earlier. Among her demands was $600,000 over two years<\/p>\n
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She also demanded reimbursement of legal expenses to review her severance package\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Robinson wanted De Niro to issue a press release confirming that she quit and was not fired<\/p>\n
Robinson worked for the actor between 2008 and July 2019 when, after many months of fraught back-and-forths with Chen, she stopped work abruptly.<\/p>\n
At the center of the dispute is also Robinson’s spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
De Niro says she misappropriated money, awarding herself\u00a0 five million Delta Airmiles from his account, misusing credit cards and racing through cash.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It seems the wheels came off when she was asked to oversee and assist with renovations on the couple’s townhouse.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paint, specifically, was the problem, though Robinson didn’t consider it hers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She told Chen to take it up with another employee – a suggestion that incensed her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Maybe you should make a new guide for both Bob and myself, this way he and I know what you have determined your responsibilities to be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘It’s becoming increasingly difficult to understand what [you] do or don’t do. What you will vs what you don’t do,’ she fumed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In a March 2019 email, Robert De Niro’s girlfriend Tiffany Chen fumed over Robinson’s refusal to assist with a paint project in the couple’s townhouse renovation\u00a0<\/p>\n
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By April 2019, Chen and De Niro were onto Robinson’s spending, demanding forensic breakdowns of how she spent company cash and firing others who they felt pandered to her<\/p>\n
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An enraged Chen learned in March 2019 that Robinson had been telling housekeepers they would be working for her boss, a ‘single man’\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Prior to firing her, Chen railed against Lulu White, a former Canal employee. ‘I’d like to remind you that we all work for Bob and you are not Chase’s assistant,’ she said\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Happier times: Prior to 2019, Robinson thanked De Niro profusely for giving her the generous birthday gift of a trip. Other emails show how he waived others’ expenses like hotel stays\u00a0<\/p>\n
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December 2016: Robinson asks firm accountant to deposit her ‘yearly’ bonus. The amount is not specified<\/p>\n
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Robinson texted De Niro often without response while she traveled with photos from her trips<\/p>\n
The emails and texts paint a picture of an eager-to-please Robinson who regularly texted her boss with photos from her trips, expressing gratitude but also continuing to ask for more.\u00a0<\/p>\n
De Niro was generous, offering to pay her severance even though he ‘didn’t have to if she quit’, as his girlfriend pointed out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He waved off the expensive hotel stay of another at The Greenwich Hotel from 2017 after Robinson seized on it, asking for his approval.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Did you approve Dan at the hotel? I wanted to make sure you were aware when he stays there and charges our AMEX account,’ she asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Not really, but leave it,’ he replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In others, she thanked him for the generous 35th birthday gift of an overseas trip.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She then bombarded him with photos from a different jaunt.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘We’re booking a return trip here. That is *if* we ever come back,’ she joked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
De Niro told the court he operated on an ‘honor system’ with employees when it came to spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The civil trial is due to continue until November 10.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n