Exclusive | As ugly Andy Cohen video surfaces, Leah McSweeney’s lawyer says Bravo thinks it’s above the law
While reality channel Bravo is dodging many of the allegations against it, a lawyer for one of its former stars says the network seems to think it is above the law.
Leah McSweeney’s attorney, Gary Edelman, made the comments to Page Six after a video surfaced showing McSweeney’s former boss Andy Cohen inviting a then-employee to watch him have sex, and McSweeney filed new court documents defending her lawsuit against the network.
Edelman says the fact that Cohen kept his job amid the video scandal bolsters McSweeney’s case and shows that network executives “don’t really care about their employees.”
Brandi Glanville, who, like McSweeney, has appeared on several of Bravo’s “Real Housewives” shows, filed a legal complaint in February about a video that “Housewives” executive producer Cohen sent her via text message in which he said he planned to have sex with Bravo star Kate Chastain of “Below Deck.”
The US Sun first published the video on Tuesday.
Cohen apologized for sending the video message in February, saying it was “clearly meant in jest.” Bravo said it investigated the incident. But Bravo said no wrongdoing was found and Cohen did not face disciplinary action.
,[Usually] “If anybody who works for or is associated with a company … sent a video like that to any of their employees, they would be fired immediately,” Edelman told Page Six on Thursday.
“This reinforces our claims and sends the message that [Bravo executives] ‘think they are above employment law’ and don’t really care about their employees at all. Especially the women who have made these shows successful.’
Meanwhile, McSweeney filed a response in February to Bravo’s motion to dismiss McSweeney’s lawsuit, in which she claimed that, among other things, “Real Housewives” show producers tried to get her fired from the job in an effort to boost the show’s ratings and that Cohen sexually harassed her by discussing her breast implants and her sexual history (Cohen has vehemently denied all allegations).
In May, lawyers for Bravo filed a motion to dismiss McSweeney’s lawsuit, calling her claims “frivolous,” and Cohen’s new court documents said McSweeney’s allegations are “without merit” and argued that her discrimination claims “improperly attempt to abridge defendants’ First Amendment rights to customize and adjust the message they wish to convey in their creative works, including through their casting choices and other creative decisions.”
In documents filed Wednesday and viewed by Page Six, his attorney, Edelman Matz, wrote that the defendants, which include Bravo, Cohen and Shed Media, a production company that makes the show, “clearly
They believe that, simply because they are in the business of filming and performing ‘reality’ television,
The First Amendment gives them an unrestricted right to discriminate against their employees.”
It added that if this argument were valid, “every employer in the entertainment industry would
should be allowed to discriminate against their employees” and “the First Amendment does not immunize them [them] out of obligation just because [they] claim to be in the business of creative expression.”
