Lianna Shakhnazaryan, Mariah Carey’s ex-assistant, has filed a lawsuit against the pop singer, claiming sexual harassment, wrongful termination, racial discrimination and other allegations.
Shakhnazaryan says she began working as Carey’s assistant in September 2015 and had an oral agreement to be paid $328,500 annually. She alleges that she was “required to meet constant demands of great magnitude and often on incredibly short time demands,” and was also an assistant to Carey’s former manager, Stella Bulochnikov.
The former assistant claims she had to endure “severe, pervasive, sexual, derogatory, offensive, physically abusive and outrageous conduct by Bulochnikov,” including “slapping of her buttocks and breasts.”
Bulochnikov also allegedly made frequent sexual and derogatory comments about her Armenian heritage and ridiculed her physical appearance.
Shakhnazaryan says that Carey was aware of the treatment she received from Bulochnikov and didn’t do anything to stop it.
Shakhnazaryan is seeking compensatory damages “including lost wages, past and future earnings and unpaid overtime,” as well as money for “physical injury, mental pain and anguish and severe emotional distress,” in addition to attorney fees and punitive damages.
Shakhnazaryan’s lawsuit comes shortly after Carey’s own lawsuit, in which she accuses Shakhnazaryan for being a Peeping Tom and extortionist.
Carey’s lawsuit accuses Shakhnazaryan of filming her without her consent and displaying intimate videos for her friends and co-workers and then “threatening to release the videos, and other sensitive, private information, unless Mariah provided her $8,000,000.”
Shakhnazaryan’s attorney, Mark Quigley, released a statement denying the claims made in Carey’s lawsuit.
“These baseless allegations are an attempt to attack my client’s character and deflect attention away from a workplace harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit she filed today against her former employer, Mariah Carey. My client never did anything she wasn’t specifically asked to do while working in the course and scope of her job as a personal assistant. Her lawsuit is about holding her employer accountable for severely inappropriate behavior that caused tremendous stress and emotional turmoil.”
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