14 DAY TRIAL // Last year, Nicollette Sheridan’s character on the highly popular ABC series “Desperate Housewives,” Edie Britt, was killed off. Though the network and people on the show insisted the departure was due to creative reasons, Sheridan always maintained series creator Marc Cherry weighed something like a personal vendetta against her – a claim she reinforced the other day, in a lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, as People informs.
According to the documents, Cherry was often verbally abusive to the cast, and Sheridan in particular. He did not like things to be handled by anyone else than him and would often go on a rampage if someone would go over his head, to network bosses, to discuss issues pertaining to the show. This is precisely what Sheridan did when she saw abuse from him was only worsening, but it all culminated with a violent episode when Cherry slapped her. The actress is now asking for $20 million in damages.
“Nicollette Sheridan alleges the show’s creator hit her in the face on the set and that she was then fired in retaliation for complaining about him, ‘resulting in her losing millions in future earnings,’ says the suit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Sheridan, whose character was killed off the show last year, is suing for $20 million, alleging assault and battery, gender violence and wrongful termination. She claims series creator Marc Cherry created a hostile work environment, ‘behaving in an extremely abusive and aggressive manner,’” People writes of the lawsuit.
“Sheridan, whose contract called for her to earn $175,000 an episode going up to $250,000 in later years, claimed that in the summer of 2008 she tried to meet privately with Cherry ‘in an effort to discuss his negative demeanor toward her and to discuss whether he had a problem with her work,’ the lawsuit says. Cherry told her he didn’t have a problem with her and apologized, only to lash out at her again, behaving in a ‘rude and degrading manner,’ leading up to a clash on the set during a Sept. 24, 2008, rehearsal, the lawsuit claims. ‘When Sheridan questioned Cherry about something that was in the script, Cherry took her aside and forcefully hit her with his hand across her face and head,’ the lawsuit says,” the mag goes on to explain.
At a later hour, Cherry went to Sheridan’s trailer to apologize, but things only escalated when he found out that she had already told ABC bosses about the violent episode. A few days on, the actress was informed that her character was being written off the show, which prompted the logical conclusion that this was Cherry’s means of retaliation for taking the matter to his bosses.