'This is all nonsense': Robert De Niro testifies against ex-PA's workplace abuse claims
Robert De Niro branded allegations from his former personal assistant that he was an abusive boss as "all nonsense" as he appeared in a New York City court on Monday.
Graham Chase Robinson is suing the two-time Oscar-winning actor for $12 million (more than £9.8 million) claiming she was left with severe emotional distress and reputational harm following an abusive decade as De Niro's employee.
Ms Robinson worked for him between 2008 and 2019 and was paid $300,000 (£247,000) annually before she quit as his vice president of production and finance.
She says she was tasked with everything from decorating the Christmas tree to taking him to the hospital when he fell down stairs.
She did so much for the “Raging Bull" star that his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, became increasingly suspicious of Ms Robinson's motives, saying she thought the employee acted like she was De Niro's wife and believed that she had “imaginary intimacy” with him.
Ms Robinson said De Niro refused to give her a reference to find another job when she quit in 2019 after repeated clashes with his girlfriend, Ms Chen.
De Niro, 80, who was the first witness in a trial resulting from the lawsuits, agreed that he had at one point listed Ms Robinson as his emergency contact and had relied on her to help with greeting cards for his children.
But when a lawyer for his former PA asked him if he considered her a conscientious employee, he scoffed.
“Not after everything I'm going through now,” he said.
De Niro twice raised his voice almost to a shout during his testimony.
Once, it occurred as he defended the interactions his girlfriend had with Ms Robinson, saying: “We make decisions together.”
The second time was when Ms Robinson's lawyer suggested De Niro asked his client to take him to the hospital in 2017 early in the morning.
“That was one time when I cracked my back falling down the stairs,” De Niro snapped.
The actor added he had delayed calling Ms Robinson, making it to his bed after the accident at 1am or 2am, but then later summoning her at 4am or 5am.
He insisted he treated Ms Robinson well, even after he bought a five-bedroom Manhattan townhouse and let her oversee some of the preparations so he could move there with his girlfriend, Ms Chen.
“It is not like I'm asking for her to go out there and scrape floors and mop the floor,” he said. “So this is all nonsense!”
Conversations between De Niro and Ms Chen, which were shown to jurors, showed Ms Chen becoming increasingly suspicious of Ms Robinson's motives.
“She felt there was something there and she may have been right,” De Niro said in defence of his girlfriend's suspicions.
In opening statements that preceded De Niro's testimony, attorney Andrew Macurdy said Ms Robinson has been unable to get a job and has been afraid to leave her home since quitting the job with De Niro.
He said De Niro would sometimes yell at her and call her nasty names in behaviour consistent with sexist remarks he made about women generally.
Mr Macurdy said the trouble between them arose when Ms Chen became jealous that De Niro relied on Ms Robinson for so many tasks and that they had strong communication.
He said his client never had a romantic interest in De Niro.
“None,” he said. “There was never anything romantic between the two of them.”
De Niro's attorney, Richard Schoenstein, said Ms Robinson was treated very well by De Niro “but always thought she deserved more.”
He described De Niro as “kind, reasonable, generous” and told jurors they would realise that when they hear the testimony of others employed by De Niro's company, Canal Productions, which has countersued Ms Robinson.
Mr Schoenstein described Ms Robinson as “condescending, demeaning, controlling, abusive” and said “she always played the victim.”
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