A hostess at Nobu Malibu, the swanky sushi hotspot founded by Robert De Niro, has filed a $500,000 lawsuit claiming she was sexually assaulted in the restaurant, which is routinely frequented by such celebrities as Beyoncé, the Kardashians, and none other than the nation’s shady first son, Hunter Biden.
Identified only as a 23-year-old Jane Doe, the hostess alleges in the Wednesday-filed lawsuit that she was sexually assaulted in the trendy restaurant, which, she stated, forces its female employees to “dress in skimpy clothes and brush off unwanted sexual advances from managers and patrons.”
Doe’s attorney, Bernard Alexander, called Nobu’s alleged behavior “frustrating.”
“It’s a frustrating irony that Nobu caters to a Hollywood client list that routinely rallies against and cancels contemporaries who exhibit the same kind of misogynistic and exploitative behavior that Nobu’s managers seem to encourage,” he said in a statement, according to the New York Post.
Like so many in the City of Angels, Doe is an aspiring actress who enjoyed the glamour of Nobu’s celebrity clientele, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Bradley Cooper, and Selena Gomez.
But the sparkle wore off, Doe claims, thanks to “handsy” customers and the alleged assault by a former manager, identified in the lawsuit only as “Marcus.”
The manager “repeatedly touched her buttocks with his hand while she was working,” according to Alexander. “On one occasion, the manager restrained both her hands and kissed her neck after he had been drinking.”
Marcus also allegedly snagged the female employees’ phone numbers from the restaurant’s employee directory and rang them up asking for dates and sexual favors.
The manager was fired in 2022, after Doe, along with other waitresses, filed a complaint, but, the lawsuit claims, he continued to harass them when he returned to Nobu as a customer.
Male workers at the restaurant were allegedly problem-free, the lawsuit claims, meaning that the nonconsensual harassment “was based on the Plaintiff’s gender.”
Doe has accused Nobu’s management of making her and her coworkers “endure outright sexual advances and abuse for the sake of maintaining Nobu’s glamourous reputation and keeping their jobs.”
She is seeking “$500,000 in damages over the allegations of sexual assault and battery, negligent hiring and supervision, employment discrimination based on gender, harassment, retaliation and other violations of the California state law,” according to The Post.
The restaurant’s co-founder, De Niro, is no stranger to gender discrimination lawsuits.
As BizPac Review reported, in March of last year, the actor reportedly hit back after former De Niro production company executive Graham Chase Robinson sued him for alleged gender bias.
Ex-employee claims proof Robert De Niro filed preemptive lawsuit in effort to ‘ruin’ and ‘humiliate’ her https://t.co/q4Zew1Rv6E pic.twitter.com/QDLSkpO6zG
— BizPac Review (@BIZPACReview) March 17, 2022
With the bravado of the characters he portrays, De Niro filed a suit of his own against his former employee.
Robinson had accused the “Taxi Driver” star of “fostering an abusive working environment,” claiming that he shortchanged her on pay and subjected her to derogatory and sexist comments.
De Niro filed his lawsuit to “humiliate” her, Robinson claimed, and she had the text messages to prove it.
“In one alleged text exchange, a long-time employee of De Niro, claimed that Robinson ‘was threatening to sue bob so they wanted to ruin her first,'” Fox News reported at the time.
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Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
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