Featured Image Credit: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
Topics: Celebrity, Robert De Niro, Sex and Relationships, US News, News, Film and TV, Money
Ben Thompson
Topics: Celebrity, Robert De Niro, Sex and Relationships, US News, News, Film and TV, Money
Robert De Niro has been facing down his former assistant in court, and things have gotten very ugly.
Now the actor's girlfriend has had her say and she didn't hold back at all.
Tiffany Chen took to the stand at her boyfriend's ongoing discrimination trial in New York.
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In her testimony, she took aim at De Niro's former assistant Graham Chase Robinson and let rip.
Robinson is suing Chen's boyfriend for alleged gender discrimination during her eleven years working at his company, Canal Productions.
Her $12 million lawsuit was filed four years ago, just after her former employer sued her for misuse of company accounts.
Speaking on the stand, Chen, 64, admitted that she had pressured De Niro into firing Robinson.
One email revealed at the trial was sent by Chen to the Taxi Driver actor in which she wrote: "If you keep her [Robinson], you and I will have problems."
Going by her testimony, Chen has evidently not softened in her feelings toward Robinson.
She branded Robinson as 'obsessive, psychotic and dangerous', likening her to the lead character in the 1992 thriller, Single White Female.
Further texts shown in court demonstrated the hatred further: "I'm not going to be happy until you tell me she's looking for a replacement. Keeping her around is just a slap in my face."
The court heard that De Niro and Chen's relationship had been under strain, whilst Robinson was around.
In one text sent in 2019, Chen fumed: "Her possessive manner over the house makes me very uncomfortable.
"Her sense of entitlement stems from this imagined intimacy she has with you.
"She thinks she's your wife and decided to be the lady of the house."
When asked if she thought Robinson believed she was romantically involved with De Niro, Chen replied: "I think she knows she's not but that's what makes her angry because she's striving to be.
"She definitely thinks she's in charge of everyone."
In text messages sent to another employee at Canal Productions, Chen accused Robinson of sneaking into her room and unplugging her electronics.
When interrogated further on these texts, Chen likened Robinson to 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde', saying she would change her moods suddenly.
Expanding further on her feelings about Robinson's behaviour towards De Niro, she said: "I believed she lived her whole life as a fantasy."
"If her fantasies are going to infringe on my personal life… I’m going to make it difficult for her.
"She was attached to the control she thought she had in this dynamic."
The trial, which will decide both Robinson and De Niro's lawsuits, is set to conclude in two weeks.