Eliza Dushku made a name for herself as Faith Lehane in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; just like Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Geller), she was a teenage girl endowed with supernatural powers and destined to battle demons, vampires, and other evil creatures from the underworld.
And it seems as if the actress is determined to continue her quest for justice in the real world, too, as she’s spoken out following a $9.5 million settlement she received from network CBS over an on-set dispute with former Bull co-star Michael Weatherly.
In a powerful op-ed for the Boston Globe, Dushku – who did not initially respond when news of the settlement broke last week – says she refrained from commenting because she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement along with Weatherly.
However, she is now speaking out since Weatherly has done the same.
Referring to his comments in The New York Times (which can be viewed at the end of this article), she highlights that “in no way was [what I experienced] playful, nor was it joking with two willing participants.
“It was not ‘Cary Grant ad-libbed lines’, an incredulous Weatherly excuse… This was classic workplace harassment that became workplace bullying. I was made to feel dread nearly all the time I was in his presence.”
n the op-ed, Dushku goes on to describe Weatherly’s abusive behaviour in detail, stating that he “harassed me from early on,” subjecting her to “constant name-calling”, often playing “provocative songs (like Barracuda)” when she arrived on set, and threatening to take her to his “rape van, filled with all sorts of lubricants and long phallic things”.
On one occasion, Dushku says Weatherly mentioned that he would like to have a threesome with her in front of a “room full of people”.
“Minutes later, a crew member sidled up next to me and, with a smirk, said in a low voice, ‘I’m with Bull. I wanna have a threesome with you too,’” she recalls.
For weeks, says Dushku, Weatherly was recorded making sexual comments. He was also recorded mimicking penis jousting with a male co-star (directly on the heels of the “threesome” proposal) and repeatedly referred to her as “legs”.
“He regularly commented on my ‘ravishing’ beauty, following up with audible groans, oohing and aahing. As the tapes show, he liked to boast about his sperm and vasectomy reversals (‘I want you to know, Eliza, I have powerful swimmers’),” continues the actress.
“Weatherly had a habit of exaggerated eye-balling and leering at me; once, he leaned into my body and inhaled, smelling me in a dramatic swoon. As was caught on tape, after I flubbed a line, he shouted in my face, ‘I will take you over my knee and spank you like a little girl’.”