E! Producer Reportedly Fired After Airing Interview Criticizing Network

A veteran producer of E!'s red carpet specials said she was fired for airing an interview criticizing the network.

Producer Aileen Gram-Moreno claims she was let go for allowing a pre-recorded interview from the 2017 Golden Globes where actress Eva Longoria criticized the network's treatment of longtime host Catt Sadler.

According to Variety, Gram-Moreno claims she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Friday, the first step toward a lawsuit against the cable channel.

E! executive Adam Stotsky told the Times that Gram-Moreno was let go for a "pattern of poor performance," and the network pointed out that Gram-Moreno was a freelancer, therefore not technically fired from the company. Stotsky denied the network attempted to censor any interviews.

Gram-Moreno's attorney Katherine Atkinson fired back at Stotsky's claims, telling Variety, "In the 12 years Aileen has been working on red carpet shows for E! they never once raised a performance issue. That is a convenient excuse for covering up attempts to silence women speaking out. Employers often attack women speaking out about discrimination — so I am disappointed in E! but not surprised."

"E! can't have it both ways. They support their position that they were not censoring references to Catt Sadler by pointing to the Eva Longoria interview. But they fired my client for failing to censor that very interview. If you attempt to censor, and then fire the person for not catching the speech you intended to censor for letting it go through, you can't then claim that you aren't so bad after all because you 'let' it air. Their argument defies logic." Atkinson continued.

Prior to the Golden Globes, Sadler parted way with E! after learning she made a significantly lower salary than her male counterpart Jason Kennedy.

In the interview with Ryan Seacrest at the Globes, Longoria shamed the network.

"We support gender equity and equal pay, and we hope that E! follows that lead with Catt as well. We stand with you, Catt," she said.

Gram-Moreno claimed that after actress Debra Messing had slammed the network's treatment of Sadler in an earlier interview, she was told to screen all pre-recorded interviews for mention of the former host.

However, she said the number of pre-recorded interviews was much higher than normal, as producers worried that Sadler's name would continue to come up. The outsize workload, she said, made it impossible to thoroughly screen all the interviews.

Gram-Moreno claimed that she was scheduled to work on three subsequent awards shows for the network, and was denied when she asked to be paid for the three canceled jobs. She said E! told her she would be contacted shortly with additional non-red-carpet assignments, but then never reached out to her again.