Posted in: ABC, streaming, TV | Tagged: ABC, burn it down, carlton cuse, damon lindelof, lost, maureen ryan

LOST Writer's Statement on Lindelof/Cuse Exposé Includes New Details

LOST writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach's "final statement" also included the reasons why they spoke with Maureen Ryan for the book, Burn It Down.

Though Vanity Fair Contributing Editor Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood (available to pre-order here) isn't set to drop until next week, the chapter focusing on Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse's Lost that was published by Vanity Fair on Tuesday has already been making headlines. In the excerpt, a number of allegations were leveled against the production, with individuals on both sides of the camera making claims of a "racist," "sexist," and general "hostile" & toxic work environment – and that the show's co-creators were either indifferent to what was taking place or feeding into it. And while our coverage yesterday focused on alleged incidents involving series star Harold Perrineau (Michael) and Lindelof's reactions to the accusations, Ryan covers a lot of ground by speaking with a number of individuals from various facets of the production whose accusations paint a pretty brutal picture of their professional lives on the set. Now, having spoken with Ryan for the book, LOST writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach is going one step further with a seven-page "Final Statement" that includes Grillo-Marxuach's "complete remarks" to Ryan "collected from text and email exchanges" and confirmation that the quotes used by Ryan were from Grillo-Marxuach "word-for-word."

"If 'Lost' is so great a work of art as to continue to be a topic of discussion after all these years, then it is cruel to expect those of us who were there to remain silent as to how the show was made. Lost succeeded because of the sustained contribution of many, many artists, many of them geniuses on their own right, and many of whom were treated quite badly and then disappeared in favor of "auteur showrunner" hagiography," Grillo-Marxuach (who wrote for the ABC series during its first two seasons) began their essay. From there, the writer listed the reasons for speaking with Ryan for the book – beginning with Ryan being "a meticulous investigator with the highest regard for objectivity and journalistic ethics."

From there, Grillo-Marxuach explained that they didn't believe that Cuse or Lindelof will suffer long-term from the allegations ("They are each too big to fail – and I assume crisis management experts, publicists, and litigators have been preparing before the publication of the book or its excerpt in 'Vanity Fair'") but that they spoke up to prevent things like from happening in the future. "What I do hope is that future abusers will be deterred and that blowing the whistle on abusers becomes less stigmatized," the writer added. Lastly, Grillo-Marxuach returns to the point from earlier in their intro that "being part of a hypocrisy, even a useful one, eventually becomes too painful."

And it's a charge that Grillo-Marxuach addresses directly, writing, "To the charge of hypocrisy, I plead no contest. I cashed the checks. I affected friendships. I handed out high praise (some deserved). I even sought to mend fences with those who broke them well after it should have been clear that the effort was demeaning. Sometimes hypocrisy is the only way people like me can survive people like them." Here's a look at the original tweet (and you can read the statement in full – including additional claims from Grillo-Marxuach – here):

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