Netflix said Friday that it had fired an employee for disclosing confidential financial information about what it paid for Dave Chappelle's comedy special "The Closer," which some condemned as being transphobic.
The employee, who wasn't named, shared "confidential, commercially sensitive information outside the company," a Netflix statement said.
"We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company," the statement said.
The statement said the information was referenced in a Bloomberg news article, which reported that Netflix spent $24.1 million on "The Closer," which first aired last week. The article also mentioned the lower budgets for a 2109 Chapelle special, a Bo Burnham special and the nine-episode hit "Squid Game."
Netflix said a review of its internal access logs pinpointed the information to a single person, who "admitted that they downloaded and shared sensitive company information externally."
"The Closer," first aired on Oct. 1 and had gained at least 10 million views. However, Chapelle's remarks about the transgender community raised protests within Netflix and from LGBTQ activists.
The media watchdog group GLAAD said that "anti-LGBTQ content" violates Netflix's policy to reject programs that incite hate or violence.
However, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told managers in an internal memo that the show doesn't cross "the line on hate" and will remain on the streaming service.
Several Netflix employees, including a software engineer who identifies as transgender, had criticized the special. Transgender employees and their co-workers are being urged to stage a walkout next Wednesday in protest.
"Our leadership has shown us that they do not uphold the values for which we are held," said a Monday post on a public company Slack channel, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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