David Graziano, the new showrunner of the series New York special unit (the series dedicated to victims of sex crimes), is accused of sexual harassment and sexism by more than a dozen people according to an investigation by the LA Times. The person denies these allegations.
David Graziano has already worked on other series such as Lie to me by Tim Roth and leads the franchise New York special unit since the beginning of this year. And its a report from the LA Times that overwhelms him: the newspaper speaks of abusive behavior, intimidation and sexism from a dozen people who have worked with him during his career. Statements that seem to stem in part from a recent post by Haley Cameron, former script coordinator of the series with Mariska Hargitay, Olivia Benson in the series. In his post, he reportedly warned others about working on the show. She would have been mistreated by Graziano, which would have led her to leave the series: “David Graziano is a very unprofessional, self-absorbed and immature man. I have been in this industry for a long time and have never experienced such pure misogyny among white men”Cameron told the script coordinators. A clear message to women that says: “I urge you, especially women, to think twice before putting yourself in a position where it could end badly like it did for me.”
The other women accuse David Graziano of having brutalized employees, made inappropriate comments about women’s bodies and created a hostile work environment in a number of series where he was one of the most powerful people on set. His former assistant, who worked for him between 2009 and 2012, heard him speak “about women’s bodies and what they would like to do with them” or expressing inappropriate sexual desires towards him. She also said she was groped by another producer. When she reported the incident to Graziano, he told her the man in question was “an important showrunner” and that she was not “nobody”.
David Graziano’s spokesperson, Alafair Hall (also spokesperson for Amber Heard during the Johnny Depp lawsuit), has denied these allegations : “The implication that Mr. Graziano created a hostile, sexist, inappropriate and unprofessional work environment is false. This allegation comes from Haley Cameron, who worked briefly as a script coordinator at New York SVU. It seems she didn’t report that she was about to be fired after less than two weeks of work for extensively editing scripts when she was only hired to flesh them out.” That seems like a bit of a short story, given that it’s not the first time the showrunner has been accused of misconduct at work, ranging from alleged bullying to sexual harassment.
A series of complaints follow Graziano from his previous jobs. And the testimony of Amy Hartman, script coordinator under Graziano on the series Coyote abounds in the same direction: “Graz is super toxic and I’ve never run away from a job as fast in my life as when I worked for him. Stay away.” And these are not not just women who accused Graziano of creating toxic work environments. David James, who served as script coordinator Coyote he too described the environment as “by far the worst job I’ve had in Hollywood. People constantly needed a moment to recover. There was so much crying in that office, it was everyday.” Reaction to this from the spokesperson: “While on Coyote, Graziano spat loudly at people and was generally in a bad mood because he was in excruciating pain from three spinal discs stuck in his neck. While he doesn’t consider his pain an excuse, it is an explanation.”
