As the legal battle between Robert De Niro and his former assistant Graham Chase Robinson continues in Manhattan federal court this week, jurors have gotten a rare glimpse into the rather unglamorous world of celebrity handling. Robinson, who alleges in her civil complaint that the Taxi Driver actor subjected her to “years of gender discrimination and harassment,†told jurors last week that conditions had deteriorated so much before she left in 2019 that “I was having an emotional and mental breakdownâ€: “I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. I couldn’t run. I was overwhelmed. I was so stressed. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think. I just didn’t know what to do … It was just — I don’t feel like I had ever hit that rock bottom. I don’t think I felt, at that time, just sort of the level of panic and just cried.â€
Robinson’s testimony cast De Niro as a man with a short temper and an even shorter grasp on boundaries. Robinson said he’d snap if she didn’t pick up the phone quickly enough, for example. Another time, Robinson said, he asked her to bring him a martini from Nobu when she was out and off the clock. De Niro — whose company Canal Productions filed a counterclaim against Robinson alleging financial misconduct — seemed to make matters worse for himself when he took the stand last week, prior to her testimony. Here, some of the job duties that came with being De Niro’s assistant, according to court testimony.
You might wind up scratching De Niro’s back. Literally. Â
Robinson said that De Niro asked her to scratch his back about three times during the last three years of her employment at Canal Productions. “I had mentioned that there was a back scratcher he could use instead,†Robinson said, explaining what she had told him when he asked for a scratch. “He said he preferred the way that I scratched his back.†De Niro said this allegation was an example of Robinson being “ridiculous.†“It is every little thing she is trying to get on me,†he said.
You might end up getting yelled at.
De Niro did not come across as a particularly sensitive boss during his and Robinson’s testimony. Robinson was asked what would happen if she didn’t pick up the phone immediately when he called. “He would be incredibly annoyed. He would continue to call and call and call. And then he would ask me every question: ‘Where are you? Why didn’t you pick up? Why didn’t you pick up my call? Now I forgot what I was going to tell you,’†she said. “Did you hear Mr. De Niro’s testimony the other day that he never yelled at you?†Robinson was asked by attorney Brent Hannafan. She answered in the affirmative. “Is that accurate?â€
“He yelled at me two days ago,†Robinson testified. “When you said he yelled at you two days ago — when he was sitting in that same chair?†Hannafan said. “Yes.†Of course, Hannafan is referring to De Niro’s courtroom outburst when he said, “Shame on you, Chase Robinson!†While De Niro did follow up with “Goddamn it, I’m sorry,†it goes without saying that this was not exactly a good look for a guy trying to defend himself from allegations that he acted inappropriately as a boss.
You might have to take De Niro’s calls at a funeral.Â
While being a celebrity’s assistant often means long hours and meeting sometimes frivolous demands, not to mention calls at all hours, testimony suggests that working for De Niro might have had excessive demands, like being available during a funeral. When asked if he tried to contact his assistant during her grandma’s funeral in 2015, De Niro gave a long response, but it can be summarized as “If I did, then I did.â€
You might have to bring De Niro a cocktail around midnight.
Robinson was asked about calls from De Niro when she was out and about, ostensibly living her own life. “Was there ever a time Mr. De Niro contacted you while you were out to dinner?†she was asked. “Yes. Frequently,†Robinson said. Was there a specific example? “I had — I had taken my friend’s daughter for her 21st birthday with a couple of friends to Bob’s restaurant, Nobu. I, of course, paid personally. And Bob had called me and asked where I was, who I was with, what I was doing. And I told him I was at Nobu, and he asked that I bring a martini to him after I finished dinner … he asked me to bring him a martini on my way home.†Robinson did indeed bring De Niro his drink after dinner, at 11 p.m.: “I met him downstairs. He was in his pajamas and slippers, and I handed him the martini … I handed him the martini in a plastic container.â€
You might rescue De Niro’s dogs from a kitchen accident …Â
De Niro’s girlfriend, Tiffany Chen, testified that Robinson went to their home when a fire alarm went off and rescued their dogs. The dog-rescue was discussed when Chen was asked about a text from January 19, 2019. Chen testified that she left something on the stove, prompting the smoke detectors to go off. She said that Robinson went to their residence, but Chen downplayed this, saying, “Well, she put herself as the point of contact on the security system, so she was the only person that they had to call.â€Â Chen was asked whether Robinson handled the smoky situation. Said Chen: “She put them on the patio. She got them out of the smoke first.â€
In Robinson’s telling, the scene was “completely chaos.†She recalled the day to jurors, saying, “There was so much smoke. It was really hard to breathe in there. I went and I got the two dogs. I took them to the second floor and put them out on the terrace on the second floor. I ran into the kitchen; I couldn’t breathe; I went back downstairs to get some air; ran back into the kitchen; I turned the stove off. There was chicken that had been burning on the stove.†She tried to open all the windows, struggling with child-safety locks. “And so for — I don’t even know how long it was, racing up and down four stories in a townhouse, trying to turn off the alarm, open all the windows. It was — it was a lot,†Robinson said. “I had never been in a situation like that before.â€
… And then you might be called a “bitch†despite having saved said dogs from said kitchen accident.
While Chen initially expressed gratitude after Robinson’s actions during the smoke incident, her tone changed over time. In a March 2019 text message presented in court, Chen complained that when De Niro was away and she needed help, Robinson “deliberately refuses to step up … I had this problem with her, you know it, and it is never going to get any better.†Chen also told De Niro, “If you keep her, you and I will eventually have problems because you have allowed her to become this disrespectful to you and now she’s telling you what she will do and what her job is.†In another missive discussed in court, Chen wrote, “When you are away, her response to me is in emails and it’s effing rude. She is dismissive and is a bitch.â€