The One Where Robert De Niro Sues His Ex-Employee For Watching 55 Episodes of Friends on the Job

As of 1903, “cellar door” has widely been considered the most beautiful phrase in the English language. This all changed this morning, August 20, 2019 at 12:01 A.M. when the official Variety Twitter account published the following string of words: “Robert De Niro's company has filed a $6 million lawsuit against a former employee after she allegedly watched 55 episodes of “Friends” in four days while on the job.”

Robert De Niro’s company. Okay. Has filed a $6 million lawsuit. That’s a lot of money. Against a former employee after she allegedly. After she allegedly what? Watched 55 episodes of “Friends” in four days while on the job.” Yes!!!!!! You are, in fact, talkin’ to me.

Anyway, according to Variety, the lawsuit by Canal Productions alleges that Chase Robinson—who was hired as an assistant in 2008 and eventually became vice president of production and finance—spent “astronomical amounts of time” streaming television on the job.

As someone who has been known to watch three full seasons of a midmarket Danish show about a plucky crime reporter over [redacted period of time], I wondered what that constituted exactly. Apparently it’s 55 episodes of Friends during a four days in January (if you do the math with 22-minute episodes, that’s about five hours a day), as well as 20 episodes of Arrested Development and 10 episodes of Schitt’s Creek during four days in March.

The lawsuit further states that “watching shows on Netflix was not in any way part of or related to the duties and responsibilities of Robinson’s employment and, on information and belief, was done for her personal entertainment, amusement and pleasure at times when she was being paid to work.” She also reportedly rarely showed up to the office and spent tens of thousands of dollars of the company’s money at Whole Foods, Dean and Deluca, and Uber.

When Robinson resigned in April, she allegedly wrote a recommendation letter for herself and tried to get De Niro to sign it. There’s only one thing Canal productions can do now: make 55 episodes of a show about this woman, who gives less of a fuck than any human in existence, for me to binge-watch.


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Originally Appeared on GQ