Actress Gabrielle Union has filed a harassment complaint against NBC and Simon Cowell, claiming NBC’s entertainment chief Paul Telegdy tried to silence her reports of racism.
Union, who has accused NBC and “America’s Got Talent” producers of firing her as a judge on the hit show after she made complaints of racism on set, said in documents filed Thursday by her attorneys that the network was “a snake pit of racial offenses,” the New York Post’s Page Six reported.
Some of NBC’s biggest stars, including Jimmy Fallon, Al Roker, Ted Danson and Union’s former “America’s Got Talent” co-star Julianne Hough, have been drawn in by Union’s legal team in her battle against the network.
The filing, which accuses the network of hiring Hough as a judge alongside Union despite her “widely publicized scandal for personally appearing in blackface,” reportedly states, “combining someone who so openly wore blackface (Hough) with someone who is black and regularly advocates on behalf of minorities (Union) should have at least alerted Telegdy that this could cause Union to experience some trepidation or concern about being unprotected from racially insensitive individuals while working as a judge on AGT.”
The filing further claims that failing to stop Cowell from smoking cigarettes inside after Union complained meant that NBC had “different rules for white males.” Cowell reportedly started smoking outside after Union complained.
