Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 24, 2021

Brittany Kaplan has accused Entertainment Weeklys fired top editor, J.D. Heyman, of joking about the Holocaust and engaging in racist and sexist behavior in a lawsuit against the magazine and its owner DotDash Meredith.

Among the other allegations in the lawsuit filed Tuesday by Kaplan, a senior editor at EW, Heyman is said to have called singer Jewel snaggletooth while insulting her for previously being homeless. Kaplan also says Heyman argued against putting Black talent on the Black History Month edition of EW because he wanted the cover to be joyous. The lawsuit also states Entertainment Weekly tried to keep complaints against Heyman out of public view.

Kaplan shared numerous other allegations about Heyman mishandling EW covers. She says he made unspecified jokes about the Holocaust and intentionally disregarded Kristen Stewarts request that she not be featured on the June 2020 Pride Month magazine cover. Kaplan also says Heyman torpedoed a potential Ryan Reynolds cover because Mr. Reynolds wanted his diverse costars on the cover with him.

As the ongoing wave of civil unrest flooded the United States in the Summer of 2020, Mr. Reynolds graciously attempted to use his fame to amplify his diverse co-stars name, image and likeness, the lawsuit states. Mr.Heymanclaimed that the cover would be too complicated to pull off with the three stars.

Instead, the cover featured six white people and one member of the BIPOC community.

Later that year, Heymanput the late Chadwick Boseman on a cover of EW over the express objection of his familys representative, the suit alleges.

Kaplan says she made various internal complaints about Heymans behavior. While no action against Heyman was taken at the time, Kaplan says she was sidelined and stripped of virtually all of her responsibilities, and was denied a promised title promotion and pay increase.

Todays filing is the unfortunate result of not only EWs alleged discriminatory and retaliatory conduct, but also its utter unwillingness to take accountability for its conduct, Kaplans lawyer, Wigdor LLP Partner Michael Willemin, said in a statement on Wednesday. Ms. Kaplan has attempted for years to resolve the subject of todays lawsuit short of litigation, but her internal complaints, even those made after we were retained to represent her, fell on deaf ears.Thus, Ms. Kaplan was left with no choice but to file this action and hopes that EW will engage in the introspection necessary to remedy the continuing wrongs outlined in the complaint.

A representative for Entertainment Weekly and DotDash Meredith did not immediately respond to TheWraps request for comment.

Last year, Heyman was fired after multiple senior staffers filed complaints with the companys human resources department accusing Heyman of creating a hostile workplace by belittling staffers and making inappropriate and racially insensitive comments.

According to several individuals with knowledge of the events, at least eight senior EW employees banded together to file complaints over the last several months and several documented their case with emails as well as recordings.

Tensions had been building at EW for some time. A former Meredith employee who worked with Heyman told TheWrap that Heymans blunt management style created an immediate culture clash from the moment he took over as EWs editor in chief in June 2019 from beloved longtime editor Henry Goldblatt. The individual said the staff felt whiplash from Heymans cynical demeanor following Goldblatts more earnest approach.

Link:

Entertainment Weekly Staffer: Boss Joked About the Holocaust, Eating Disorders - TheWrap

Category: Holocaust
Tags: