Lena Waithe Denies Not Protecting Women From Jason Mitchell Misconduct On Set Of ‘The Chi’

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Lena Waithe Addresses Jason Mitchell Misconduct

After The Hollywood Reporter broke a recent story implying “everyone knew” about Jason Mitchell‘s inappropriate set behavior on “The Chi’, guess who folks started to side-eye? Lena Waithe, the show’s creator, and ‘Times Up’ advocate is clarifying a few things for the folks who are assuming she was coddling an alleged sexual-harrasser.

On “The Breakfast Club” today, Waithe tells Charlamagne that she did take steps to get the proper sexual harassment training on set after hearing rumbles of Mitchell’s misconduct on the first season. She says she even hired more Black women, a show runner and co-director to balance out the atmosphere but still misconduct seeped through the cracks.

However, being the creator of multiple projects, Lena says she couldn’t keep her eye on things all the time on set. But, she would never want any women on her sets feeling less than.

“Ultimately, what I wanna do, is make things right with Tiffany on a personal level. She don’t deserve to be dragged. She is someone we should be actually protecting. To me, she is representative of a lot of women of color who are ignored and are silenced and pushed away.”

“It’s just not true that I knew he [Jason Mitchell] was acting crazy and I wasn’t doing anything. Even I talked to him, human to human, and said ‘you need to be respectful of any woman on set’. I can’t have you acting crazy on MY show, because it bares my name.”

Lena went on to say that Tiffany is a brilliant actor and she wants folks to focus on that per Tiffany’s wishes. Hit play to hear the entire explanation.

Does this explanation help you put this Jason Mitchell scandal in the past?