Why It’s Never Too Late To #Metoo Your Boss
By: Alex M.
Tags: Entertainment Industry, Metoo, Sexual Harassment, Times Up Movement, Feminism

Photo by Mihai Surdu

I have spent the past few years trying to surrender to the idea that my voice, my story, my experience is not “significant” enough to be told. Through much healing and processing with friends, therapists, and loved ones, I made the terrifying yet incredibly cathartic decision to finally put my experience down on paper.

I was conditioned by a man in a place of power and authority, my own boss who was so well-respected in his field, to believe this is what I deserve, this is what every woman goes through to get to the top. I worked in one of the top media companies in the world in one of the most sought after networks. I fell in love with the fast-paced world of media and entertainment and the unlimited possibilities of growth. My boss was a young 30s, yet quickly rising media executive — he was charming, innovative, and evidently knew how to get what he wanted.

I will always remember the first moment I knew something about him was too good to be true. He was a master at blurring the lines between professional and personal ever so slightly, that often times it was not even noticeable. He did it with such ease, you were left not only feeling worthy of his attention but trusting him more and more.

One day I was called into a meeting, along with our team, and one of the show’s hosts. I should mention both my boss and the host were married at the time, and he was her boss as well. I noticed in front of everyone she had a flirtatious banter with him which half of the department joked about and half were incredibly uncomfortable with. They had a personal romantic relationship outside of work that everyone knew about but never would admit to. She would touch him in meetings, have her arms wrapped around him, and he absolutely loved it. He loved the attention from a younger, beautiful blonde television host and he loved how at the end of the day he was the boss of her. It was well known in the office they were having an affair, that this had been going on for years. It was as if it were in plain sight. They would flirt on each other’s social media pages, and nobody could touch them because of his power and authority.

I say this to paint the full picture of this man’s arrogance and how extreme his sense of entitlement was and how for a young woman just starting her career in the company, I was the perfect target for him. Our relationship started when he saw a pitch I had worked on and started bringing me into meetings, wanting me to be more a part of merging with new companies he was working with. He had just become head of the digital media department and was always adding fresh eyes to the team. For someone in my position, this was an exciting step in my career. Those meetings and email correspondences quickly turned into more personal interactions. He would further communicate by adding me on my personal Instagram page, which I soon learned is where all of his “out-of-office” interactions seemed to take place.

There was always a small voice in my head wondering if this was crossing a line, if this was appropriate for my boss to be liking ten of my photos at a time on my personal social media page late at night, especially given this was a newly married man and how this seemed to be a pattern with this other woman already. However, I kept convincing myself this is the entertainment world, this is how connections are established, this is me putting my future first. I was convinced that since his wife also worked at the company, she would have known about anything going on, so I must be reading into it all. He was just my boss, right?

Things escalated very quickly once I saw how this man went so easily from a professional to a clearly intoxicated individual professing his sexual desires to me through direct messages on social media. The first time this happened I froze, I deleted the messages knowing I had to see him the next day, and pretended like they never happened. He would comment on photos of me in a bathing suit, calling me “too good to be true” and saying “you like when I give you special attention huh,” or often mentioning how if only he wasn’t married, the things he would do to me. Often times he did not seem like his sober self, and would call me names like “Bitch” when he was trying to flirt or joke with me, which never felt right and was so different from the man he acted like at work. The first time he sent me a message, at a loss of words, I replied just saying “thanks!” I thought, he’s my boss I have to be polite, but my gut was screaming that this was not ok. The next day at work he removed me from a meeting I was supposed to sit in on as if he was testing my boundaries. That evening, back to his other (what always seemed to be not sober) self, he messaged me as if nothing had happened, asking what I was wearing.

I noticed how he quickly conditioned me to believe he was the victim of his life. He would go on about how he had fallen into the trap of living the “settled suburban married life” and how he had such a difficult childhood- that when he was a child his mother moved his family from a small town to Los Angeles after she got her own TV show and decided to pursue a career in entertainment. He said he always felt like growing up here never truly felt like home, and speaking to me he finally felt understood.

I began to grasp how twisted and dark this man’s mentality was. The Jekyll and Hyde persona — one being the established married man, loved and respected professionally and personally, the other being a sexually obsessed predator abusing his professional power and unable to control his impulses. I felt completely trapped in the depths of it, confused, and used, all at his disposal. I was constantly worried I was going to be fired for any misstep. It made me sick seeing how he was so passionate about making his kosher image so known and it only made me question myself, if I was somehow doing something wrong in this. If I was to blame for his impulses. Was it my photos? Was I too nice? That is what kept me quiet for so long.

After months of his non-stop behavior, I got to the point where I dreaded coming to work. I dreaded having to see him, having to pretend like everything was normal. I was isolated from friends, unable to eat due to anxiety and an increasing sense of hypervigilance. I just knew I couldn’t live this way for much longer. I told a few co-workers about what he was doing; they all believed me while simultaneously encouraging me to let it run its course, and it wasn’t worth the trouble to report someone so high up. He was a genius at switching back to acting like a professional boss. This was what truly scared me so much about him, what made me question my own intuition.

I told a few co-workers about what he was doing; they all believed me while simultaneously encouraging me to let it run its course. It wasn’t worth the trouble to report someone so high up.

At this point, it had been almost a year of living with this secret. I felt like I was doing something so wrong like I must be to blame if I’m the only one who feels so off about this behavior. I finally decided to report him to my HR department regarding the dynamic of his flirtatious behavior with the other female host of several shows he had developed. I explained how his inappropriate actions forced the entire office to keep their heads down and to not speak up — meanwhile all of this was going on at the height of the #metoo movement. I saw a huge problem with the company as a whole. HR took my complaint and said it would be looked into. Unfortunately, I was about to understand the harsh reality of the industry, that much more had to happen to bring someone of such power and value down.

The final straw for me was the night I happened to see him out for drinks after work. The place was a well-known spot people in our company would go to. As soon as I saw him he walked right up to me, scotch in hand, and started striking up a conversation about work like nothing had ever happened between us. Most of my co-workers loved him and only looked up to him as a mentor-figure, so he was completely comfortable and in his element. And as always, was loose and buzzed. As soon as he would get a chance he’d lean over and start whispering how he had a hotel room, he had just left his wife, and if I wanted to take him up on that night I was more than welcome to. He was clearly drunk at this point. Our co-workers kept chatting him up and loved that he kept buying rounds. Only I knew why he drank so much and what he turned into when he did.

I remember as I left that night I knew I had to stop living in silence, that this had gone too far. As he saw me walking out the door and away from my co-workers, he tried to lean in and grab my lower back and slide his hand down my body, as if to try once more to push every boundary he could. I pushed him off and said, “Stop I’ve had enough. I know what you are doing I’m not okay with this I’m done.” I left and knew I had officially had enough, I had to speak up.

That next Monday I went back to HR. Since at this point he was also under investigation for the inappropriate relationship with the female host, I was stunned at how well I was now received by the department.

To my utter disbelief, he was fired early the following year by January of 2019. Years of living in this darkness were summed up to this moment. Ironically, what he was publicly called out for in the tabloids was due to his alleged inappropriate relationship with the female host rather than what I experienced him to be, a much more dangerous version at that. I will never forget the day that story broke in the news, seeing his true self starting to be exposed. I remember the indescribable numb feeling I got seeing his picture next to that blonde host. What an unexpected ending to my experience of this man. To this day it’s still hard to believe this is how it all ended. His reputation in the industry is completely ruined along with his reputation associated with his personal life. Was this a blessing that I could remain so anonymous yet still feel some justice was served?

Over the years I’ve even heard from other colleagues that companies want nothing to do with him and he is truly done in the industry. For a couple of years, this was enough for me to live with, I felt karma finally caught up to him, his mask was removed and everyone knew who he really was. However, there was always a lingering feeling of dissatisfaction, a lack of closure. I felt he had gotten off with just a PR scandal, and the real violation committed was for the harassment of a young woman who was not protected by status and fame- A young woman who was trying to establish her career, and who had unfortunately stumbled into the crosshairs of this disturbed man’s agenda.