The Coach's name being included in serious lawsuit.
Ex-ESPN host Adrienne Lawrence has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the company. Lawrence has accused ESPN of ignoring her complaints of sexual harassment, particularly aimed at 22-year ESPN anchor John Buccigross. These claims were first brought to the public back in December of last year while Lawrence spoke with the Boston Globe.
ESPN would deny that they neglected their former employee's complaints in the following statement that was released in December of 2017:
“We conducted a thorough investigation of the claims Adrienne Lawrence surfaced to ESPN and they are entirely without merit. Ms. Lawrence was hired into a two-year talent development program and was told that her contract would not be renewed at the conclusion of the training program. At that same time, ESPN also told 100 other talent with substantially more experience, that their contracts would not be renewed. The company will vigorously defend its position and we are confident we will prevail in court.”
Now, where current RAW commentator Jonathan Coachman plays into this. Coach was in the list of names who were included in the sexual harassment lawsuit. Adrienne Lawrence claimed that Coachman reached out to her to provide mentorship, but attempted to make the relationship more than that. Lawrence says that she was told by her fellow colleagues that Jonathan Coachman has sexually harassed female employees in the past.
Here's an except from the lawsuit document:
"On or around January 18, 2016, SportsCenter anchor Jonathan Coachman (“Coachman”) emailed Ms. Lawrence offering to provide her with mentorship and providing his cellphone number. When he contacted her via text, he quickly turned a professional conversation into a personal matter, asking her about her musical interests. He was employing the ESPN predators’ playbook. See supra at ¶ 84. Colleagues then cautioned Ms. Lawrence that Coachman was notorious for sexually harassing female employees. After learning that, Ms. Lawrence made an effort to communicate to Coachman that she had a boyfriend, after which she did not hear from him again and he made no offers of mentorship.”
As more information regarding the case comes to the forefront, we will continue to update you here on Fightful.
