Tiffany Chen and Robert De Niro. Stéphane Cardinale – Corbis/Getty Images
- Graham Chase Robinson remained on the witness stand in her $12 million gender discrimination case against Robert De Niro.
- She and a colleague could be heard comparing notes about De Niro’s current and former partners in secret audio recordings.
- Her testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.
It seems that there wasn’t a woman in Robert De Niro’s entourage that his former executive assistant didn’t fight with.
Graham Chase Robinson continued on the stand Monday in her $12 million gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against the two-time Oscar winner and his company Canal Productions in Manhattan federal court, detailing her feuds with his ex-wife Grace Hightower . his current girlfriend Tiffany Chen and his business partner Jane Rosenthal, CEO of Tribeca Enterprises.
Robinson, who worked for De Niro from 2008 to 2019, claims that De Niro verbally abused her, relegated her to “stereotypical tasks like housework” and paid her less than male employees because she was a single career woman who didn’t have a family support. De Niro has denied the allegations, calling them “all nonsense.”
De Niro countersued the former executive assistant, claiming she stole five million frequent flyer miles from him and amassed thousands of dollars through unauthorized taxi rides, expensive restaurants and gourmet food using his company’s American Express Gold card. The Cape Fear actress also said she spent her days bingeing Netflix while claiming to be overworked. In court documents, Robinson denied those allegations, The New York Times reported.
The jury in this trial will decide both suits simultaneously, and the jury has already heard dirty laundry being aired in this case.
In secret audio recordings Robinson played in court, she and a colleague could be heard comparing notes about De Niro’s current and former love interests.
“Who do you think is worse, Grace or Tiffany?” Robinson asks the actor’s accountant, Michael Tasch.
“Tiffany,” he replies. “She’s a fucking psychopath. I figured them out in about two minutes. She thought she was Mrs. De Niro from the start. Every time she talks to him on the phone she’s mad at him.”
The ex-wife doesn’t do much better in the employee rankings either.
In the recording, Robinson called Hightower a “fucking lunatic” and “the devil you knew” who would “bully” and stare her down.
Robinson testified last Friday that she immediately clashed with Chen, an actor and martial arts expert who moved in with De Niro in fall 2018.
Robinson said she believes Chen was jealous of her relationship with the “Raging Bull” actor and wanted to banish her from the couple’s life.
When Chen complained that she became ill from a mold infestation in the actor’s Upper East Side townhouse, De Niro’s lawyers wanted to show that Robinson had been slow to alleviate the health problem. Instead of fulfilling her obligation to her employer’s girlfriend, she can be heard in recordings played in court describing Chen as a “sociopath” who suffers from Munchausen syndrome – a mental condition in which the person suffering from the disease invented the illness .
Tribeca boss Rosenthal, De Niro’s business partner, was also the target of Robinson’s wrath.
The ambitious assistant hoped to use her position as the actor’s high-paid patron to pursue a career in film development and production, but she believed Rosenthal would hold her back.
De Niro’s lawyers presented the jury with a list detailing all the slights she had suffered at the hands of Rosenthal.
Her complaints range from a lack of recognition in Tribeca productions she appeared in to vague statements like “Vendetta against me” and “Picks on me.”
Robinson testified Friday that she heard De Niro call Rosenthal a “bitch” and a “cunt.”
The executive assistant, who enjoyed lavish perks on her birthday including free air travel, a $15,000 Christmas bonus and a Rolex watch – a compliment from De Niro – also has to defend herself against the “Taxi Driver” actor’s countersuit, in who alleges she stole from him breached her fiduciary duty to his company.
Lawyers for De Niro wanted to prove on Monday that Robinson used her company advantages for her personal gain, including flying to London with the actor’s money so that she could present her own film project to a producer there.
Her testimony is expected to continue Tuesday.
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