'Lost' Co-Creator Damon Lindelof Responds to Allegations of Toxic, Racist Work Environment
TV writer and producer Damon Lindelof has apologized for the working conditions on Lost after a new book accused him of fostering a hostile work environment. Lindelof is a co-creator of Lost and was a co-showrunner for several years during the show's entire run. A new book about the production claims that Lindelof and his colleagues created a "nakedly hostile" work environment, and in the very same book, Lindelof apologized without denying the allegations.
The new book is called Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan, and it tells stories from behind the scenes of some of the biggest productions in the last few decades. On Tuesday, Vanity Fair published an excerpt that was entirely about Lost, featuring interviews with people who worked on the show as well as Lindelof. Ryan apparently interviewed Lindelof in 2021 and presented her conclusions from other interviews to him. The 50-year-old producer said that he had "failed" as a showrunner on the series.
"My level of fundamental inexperience as a manager and a boss, my role as someone who was supposed to model a climate of creative danger and risk-taking but provide safety and comfort inside of the creative process – I failed in that endeavor," Lindelof told Ryan. In a follow-up interview months later, he added: "The way that I conduct myself and the way that I treat other humans who I am responsible for and a manager of is a by-product of all the mistakes that were made... I have significantly evolved and grown, and it shouldn't have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on Lost."
While Lindelof took responsibility for the conditions on the set of Lost, he said that he was "largely oblivious to the adverse impacts that I was having on others in that writers' room during the entire time that the show was happening." He went on: "It's not for me to say what kind of person I am. But I will say this – I would trade every person who told you that I was talented – I would rather they said I was untalented but decent, rather than a talented monster."
Some of the people who worked on Lost told Ryan that the show had "dark and complicated" drama behind the scenes and that the working conditions could be "grueling and scarring" on set. Meanwhile, actor Harold Perrineau recounted how he had spoken to producers about the way the show focused on white characters and shoved him to the side, along with the other non-white characters. Perrineau said these critiques were poorly received by his colleagues and later by network executives. He said that he felt Lindelof and co-showrunner Carlton Cuse "were mad at me" rather than listening to his feedback.
Other anonymous sources reportedly told Ryan that they remembered Lindelof speaking harshly of Perrineau after his character was killed off and he left the show. They said that they remembered Lindelof saying that Perrineau "called me racist, so I fired his ass." When confronted with this, Lindelof said he did not remember it that way, but said: "I'll just cede that the events that you're describing happened 17 years ago, and I don't know why anybody would make that up about me."
There are other allegations of racism, sexism and general hostility leveled against Lindelof and Cuse in Ryan's book, as well as an emailed response from Cuse. The full excerpt is available in Vanity Fair, and the book itself will be published on Tuesday, June 6. It is available now for preorder in print, digital and audiobook formats.