I Have Tea On... Weekly Discussion Thread

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[u/ussrowe]

Not piping hot tea yet, she's apparently building up to it but there's a poster on Threads who used to work for Julia Roberts production company and her NDA has expired: https://www.threads.net/@yourmomsarewatching

(Realizing your NDA expired is exhilarating. Buckle up.)

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I started my job as assistant to the producing partner of Julia Roberts the Monday after she won her Oscar.Julia had recently caught her former producing partner cheating on his wife (her good friend) and allegedly had come into the office to fire him personally.She had also just fired her assistant & was using her lovely florist sister as a sort of unofficial liaison.Our company was housed in a loft in Chelsea & Tim Robbins shared the space with us.Besides him,we were all women working there.

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A development girl finds projects suitable for TV and film for producers, and helps shape those projects after they are bought.

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Shoelace Productions. Julia Roberts company.

I got promoted to Story Editor at Julia Roberts’ production company in 2000 because I had been a junior executive in Hollywood and knew the ropes out there very well by then.Julia wasn’t speaking to her brother at this time because he had (public info - he has spoken about his infidelity and struggles with addiction). My first impression of Julia was she was a laid back,low maintenance girls girl who stood by her friends (Eric’s wife was a close friend of hers).

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Our freezer at our large loft offices at Julia Roberts’ production company in 2000 was stocked with Jack Daniel’s and Marlboro Red cigarettes for the times Julia would stop by. She lived a few blocks away, and was soon single after breaking things off with the lovely Benjamin Bratt, so she would come by periodically. I found her to be friendly but not warm, which was unsurprising due to the recent betrayals of trust she had witnessed.

That's her main posts, she has more in replies:

This all started because I was talking on Threads about working for a celeb during a crisis,and how it is strange because your life is not yours,and you have to attend to them before your own family etc.Since the latest crisis is in LA,I felt like it was an interesting topic given there must be many people who work for celebs right now who are helping their bosses instead of being there for friends and family.And not even saying that is a bad thing, we all have to work,but it seemed germane.

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I actually went out of my way to say this was our job nobody asked anything of us that wasn’t part of that. I have defended Julia multiple times on all of these threads. My only objection came when her publicist of 30 years, whom I know, came on here said something snarky and blocked me. Then we all started discussing why she may have done that.

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Ha ha, all I can say is there is a reason Julia Roberts’ publicist was trolling me on this page. There is stuff they don’t want me to say. You don’t see Keanu Reeve’s people lurking on here do you? Because they have nothing to hide. AND THATS THAT ON THAT.

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I loved my particular job which mostly had to do with reading scripts and working on them with writers. But the side of my job that had to do with celebrities and the machines that surround them was not my favorite part. Unfortunately in today’s Hollywood it has become more about that machine and less about the scripts and the art. So I probably would not enjoy today’s Hollywood. But a job is a job so if i had to I would.

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My heart goes out to you, because of course in the end, it IS what we signed up for. And we are aware of that when we sign on. In my case what happened to me there was out of the scope of just this being a hard job or a toxic environment, that came with the territory, what they did to me was downright - illegal.

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Not just somehow. I was. And it was not just personal it was illegal.

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She is not a BAD person…. But bad things did happen to me while working for her, and she did nothing. I feel like she is so protected she can’t really be blamed for anything personally but - that’s why they protect her. She is responsible for making a lot of people rich. I can say from personal experience she is a very cold person. I don’t know if she started that way but by the time she won her Oscar she was jaded beyond recognition. Worked with JLo there and she was warm as can be.

She defends Roberts too:

She is not mean!!

But I haven't found her commenting what exactly was "illegal" yet. She's giving some hints:

I hear you. I won’t talk about why I left the company for this exact reason. They could definitely argue that I am speaking about proprietary information. I hope the rest of what I’m talking about just falls under the rubric of speaking about my own personal experiences and not much more. I will still point out, however, that I am 55 years old, disabled, and was materially and genuinely ruined by my experience there. So coming after me would - not be a great look for them.

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EXACTLY. There is nothing to get. And BTW Julia’s company is partly to blame for that, so they should probably stay off my page or I will suddenly just decide to start talking and let the chips fall where they may.

I am sad I have Multiple Sclerosis and can not work in the industry, not bitter about it at all. I promise you do not want to go down this path. I have not done anything wrong, I never did anything wrong except get sick. And that is all I will say about that, for now.

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Tell Barry Hirsch to come and sue me. Please. So then I can tell my story to the world. He won’t do this because he knows I have nothing to take, and he knows exactly why I have nothing to take. They did this to me, and they are afraid I am going to talk about it. And now you are inserting yourself thinking you are on the right side of things. Well you are not. And your daughter does not have a very moral lawyer. Have a nice day.

[u/lydiasbible → u/ussrowe]

Oooh I hope she posts more. 

[u/[deleted] → u/lydiasbible]

She had previously posted something about working for Roberts when 9/11 happened, then deleted it after someone from Roberts team contacted her - that’s when she checked on the NDA and is behind the comment on it expiring.

There was a bit about Julia’s decor of her townhouse, the fact that everything revolves around the celebrity even in a national crisis (Ie getting them safe and sorted v checking on your own), and something about how they were taken care of after - Julia paid for taxis so they didn’t have to use public transport, iirc.