14 DAY TRIAL // Victoria Rowell is going after Sony and CBS in a new lawsuit claiming she was racially abused and discriminated against on the set of “The Young and the Restless.” Word of the lawsuit got out in February this year, but The Wrap has obtained a detailed declaration filed in court earlier this month.
The allegations made in it are truly horrible: Rowell says she was mocked and spat on, directly threatened and “informed” that she was the least liked person on set, the trade publication says.
Rowell names names
CBS and Sony have already dismissed her claims of racial abuse and discrimination, saying she was only taking matters to court because she wanted back on the show. Because she’d been told that it was not happening, she was taking her revenge by trying to drag the show through the mud.
In previous documents, Rowell said that she didn’t leave the soap opera by choice but because she was pushed into it, presumably by the years of abuse. She also said that she’d tried to get her character more screentime so as to be more representative of everyday reality, but she was told off.
Now, she names names. So either she’s telling the truth or, if Sony / CBS are honest in saying she wants back, her desperation is such that she no longer cares about consequences.
For instance, she says Melody Thomas Scott mocked her in front of everybody, running on the set and dancing like crazy while wearing an Afro wig matching her “Afro-styled hair that day.”
Michelle Stafford, prompted by director Noel Maxam and then-producer Edward Scott, ambushed her and yelled at her that she was a “freak” whom no one liked. Peter Bergman “publicly called me mentally unstable and physically threatened me on set,” she alleges.
These were just a few of the “various racially charged attacks” she was victim of.
If you know anything of “The Young and the Restless,” you must already have noticed that these assailants are big stars working on the show; Thomas Scott, for one, has been on as Nikki since the early days.
CBS, Sony won’t budge
Sony and CBS are yet to say anything on the latest allegations revealed in the press, but chances are their tune won’t change: there is no merit to the lawsuit because Rowell is only making up the allegations to get even for not being hired back.
They maintain she left of her own volition in 2007 and has been trying to get back on since. The implication is that she left because she thought she could do better, found out that this wasn’t the case and then, seeing the show was still on and a hit, tried to get back.
Apparently, she could not take no for an answer.