Rosette Laursen has since quit her job as an assistant at a Los Angeles-based talent agency. Photo / via Facebook
Rosette Laursen has since quit her job as an assistant at a Los Angeles-based talent agency. Photo / via Facebook
A Hollywood big-wig who accidentally hit "reply all" has seen his offensive email - which includes the line, "Someone should sew her vagina shut" - go viral.
The email, a reply to a request from an assistant for an unpaid day off, has been posted on Facebook.
RosetteLaursen, who has since quit her job as an assistant at a Los Angeles-based talent agency, said she received the email from her boss accidentally after asking for a day off on March 8 for International Women's Day.
His sexist rant, she says, was intended for two of her male co-workers.
"I asked for the day off because I thought this was a great cause," she wrote. "I did not ask to be paid for the day, so it was the equivalent of asking for an unpaid sick day."
"Are you f****** kidding me. At the end of pilot season. Someone should sew her vagina shut. I'm never hiring a girl ever again."
It continued: "No bonus for anyone that strikes or leaves early in pilot season. No one is striking in show business we are all against Trump. And women are considered diverse and being shoved in as writer and directors. Zach who is a Jewish male is being pushed out ... Uppity Selfish C***. Heather went to work. I'm sure anyone at a casting office or agency would be fired."
Laursen then quickly received the following apology.
"I apologize for venting like a misogynistic f*****. I was letting off steam I didn't mean to hit reply all. I'm an asshole. If you come back we can play Nazi death camp. You can beat me and put me in the oven. Or feed me cabbage and lock me in the shower. I am truly sorry."
Laursen, who names her boss in her Facebook post, replied: "I quit."
In her post, she said the emails were the latest in a long list of incident at the agency.
The offensive message from Rosette Laursen's talent agency boss.
"One of my male co-workers, obviously realising he would be experiencing 'a day without a woman' for the indefinite future and would have to do more work, encouraged me to come back into the office saying, 'It was just a joke'," she wrote.
"My co-workers had worked there for years and my only guess is that they slowly became desensitised to [the boss'] behaviour to the point where the line of what is normal or acceptable didn't just blur, it disappeared.
"Which is sad, because I otherwise liked them. But, I understand the psychological effects a person of power can have on their crew. Look at Helter Skelter. I'm sure those girls who led random victims to Charles Manson to be murdered could also be really fun at a game night playing cards against humanity."
Laursen added that the "response ... shouldn't have surprised me considering my past exchanges with him", but described the email as the "final straw". She added that her Christmas bonus that year was red lingerie that "made me look like a ham", but pointed out that her boss "is gay so it could be weirder".
"He could be kind of terrible," she wrote. "However, sometimes he was actually really cool and funny and nice ... That's why it's harder to get out of these situations ... Good qualities aside, a majority of the time he was screaming terrific things like the N word at the top of his lungs while describing black clients who were frustrating him.
"He would call his employees 'f***ing retards', and scream he is never friends with women. Then it would slowly dawn upon him that he maybe took things a little too far, and he would say, 'I was just joking.' Knowing that his employees are not professional joke judges on Last Comic Standing, he was confident that he had just convinced us that we simply missed the clever and subtle punchline."
Laursen said she had originally intended to tell her story anonymously, but "the truth is, I stand proudly by everything I've written". "If someone chooses not to hire me because of this, it will likely save us both from a weird workplace fit," she wrote.
"If someone doesn't want to be my friend because of this I respectfully understand that our differences would probably come between us sooner or later and we should probably spend our time with like minded people. I value and respect who I am and I want to be surrounded by people who value and respect me too.
"Please don't let anyone treat you like this, and to paraphrase the great Mike Birbiglia - If you have to say it was a joke, it wasn't a good joke."
The post has been shared nearly 1000 times and attracted hundreds of comments.
Her ex-boss' website says his agency handles "a variety of actors, dancers, directors, and choreographers. From Oscar winners to Broadway Stars."
