Gabrielle Union Responds to NBC's Plans to Prevent Employee Harassment

Gabrielle Union is speaking out once more about NBC. Union took to Twitter on Tuesday to comment on the network’s recently revealed plans to address workplace harassment, which she said are a step in the right direction, but don’t go far enough.

“Great start by NBC to recognize the need to not turn away & ignore racial & gender discrimination on programs like #AGT,” Union tweeted, in response to a report about the network’s expanded employee protection plans.

However, Union said that the network needs to do more in the future to protect employees from network leadership, and again claimed that she’d faced intimidation from an unnamed NBC executive.

“More changes are needed however,” Union wrote. “Like stopping executives from intimidating talent from sharing their experience of racism in their own workplace investigations.”

NBCUniversal TV and streaming chairman Mark Lazarus sent out a memo Tuesday detailing the company’s move to expand protections for employees against toxic workplace environments on shows produced by NBC and by third-party production companies, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The announcement comes in the wake of an internal investigation into America’s Got Talent after Union went public with accusations of harassment and discrimination she claims to have witnessed and experienced during her time as a judge during season 14.

Recently, Union sat down for an interview on The Daily Social Distancing Show With Trevor Noah, and she opened up about her discrimination complaint against NBC, Simon Cowell, FremantleMedia and Syco Entertainment, which she filed with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing in June.

The complaint has since been closed, as Union requested an immediate right to sue, which she was granted. The complaint was made after NBC conducted an independent investigation into her claims. 

Union told Noah that she “decided to participate” in the investigation to try to accomplish her goals of “change,” “treating employees fairly,” and holding “the people at the very top accountable,” but she says it wasn’t conducted as she’d hoped.

“They were like, ‘We’re going to commission this independent investigation.’ Well, silly me. I thought independent was independent, but when NBC and Fremantle and Syco pay for that investigation, they control it,” she said. “They turn over what they believe to be inflammatory things, or things that are not advantageous to me, over to the head of NBC, Paul Telegdy, who uses those things that he thinks are smoking guns to shoot down my claims. He then threatens my agent [by saying,] ‘Gabrielle better watch who she calls a racist’ in the middle of an investigation about racism and discrimination. This is what’s happening from the top of the company.”

In a previous statement to ET, NBC said that Union’s claim of a threat being made against her was “categorically untrue.”

“We took Ms. Union’s concerns seriously, and engaged an outside investigator who found an overarching culture of diversity on the show. NBCUniversal remains committed to creating an inclusive and supportive working environment where people of all backgrounds are treated with respect,” the statement read.

For more on the ongoing legal drama between Union and NBC, see the video below.

Gabrielle Union Obtains Rights to Sue Simon Cowell and ‘AGT’ After Independent Investigation

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