NBC Denies Gabrielle Union Threatened Directly By Exec Paul Telegdy, Silent On Racial Discrimination

Gabrielle Union filed a complaint against NBC and the producers at ‘America’s Got Talent’ today.

In addition, she included a complaint alleging that NBC Entertainment Chairman Paul Telegdy directly threatened her to keep quiet.

Paul denies the allegations.

via Deadline:

“The allegation that anyone involved in this process threatened Ms. Union is categorically untrue,” the Comcast-owned net said in a statement Thursday hours after Union’s harassment, discrimination and retaliation filing with California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing became public.

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

Likely heading towards a lawsuit or arbitration, Cowell, Universal TV, Syco Entertainment and Fremantle Productions North America are all named in the complaint to the state agency.

A complaint that also claims that Telegdy did directly call Union’s reps at CAA in February in what is characterized as an effort to allegedly “threaten and intimidate” the actor from pursuing her claims of racism on AGT. Not addressing additional claims in the complaint that the probe was incomplete and mishandled, today’s NBC statement also overlooks the very serious claims that Telegdy breached corporate Code of Conduct rules. The executive is also said to have spoken about the investigation into Union’s allegations of “racist and misogynistic conduct” on AGT with “A-list talent with whom NBC was looking to hire” and others

When asked about the absence of such issues from their statement, a NBC spokesperson told Deadline that there would be “nothing further as we don’t comment on pending legal matters.”

In point of fact, the statement from the home of AGT today is actually in regards to words by Union’s lawyer and long-time NBC foil Bryan Freedman earlier Thursday not the actually filing, I hear.

A point that the veteran attorney made in his own response today to NBC’s response.

“It’s very telling that NBC fails to substantively address the DFEH complaint that Ms. Union filed based on racial discrimination,” stated Freedman. “Instead, NBC wants to try and play word games by saying that their Chairman Paul Telegdy did not directly threaten Gabrielle Union,” he adds.

NBC might be better off issuing a public apology and cutting Gabrielle a check.