Scott Rudin Article in Hollywood Reporter / Toxic Work Space

Several former employees say Rudin’s intimidation tactics continue to this day and expressed trepidation about speaking out. Andrew Coles, who worked for Rudin in 2012 and is now a producer of such films as Queen & Slim, believes Rudin tried to send him a message about his participation in THR‘s April exposé as an on-the-record source. During a May 20 panel for Anita Hill’s Hollywood Commission that was reported widely, Coles relayed a chilling anecdote: The day before THR‘s story broke, as it already was circulating widely around agency circles due to a mysterious leak, an anonymous person called in a false murder-suicide threat at Coles’ West Hollywood home. A heavily armed SWAT team arrived at the house where Coles, who is Black, lives with another Black man. “My housemate was taken out of the house at shotgun point. There was a helicopter circling overhead. There were barricades in front of my street,” he said during the panel. “I do not know what the intention [was] of whoever sent that SWAT team to my house — whether it was to intimidate, to dissuade me from further speaking, to have a chilling effect on anyone else who might speak. I don’t know who’s interested in upholding the status quo of how broken this industry is.”