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<\/a>Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast\/Getty<\/p><\/div>\n
It\u2019s like a scene from a bad Hollywood movie: an employee takes off a few hours from work to bring his fianc\u00e9e to the oncologist for a cancer check-up, only to have the tyrannical boss call and curse him out for slacking off.<\/p>\n
Only, according to one former employee of the entertainment and media news site TheWrap, it really happened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are you thinking?\u201d founder and CEO Sharon Waxman bellowed at the employee in the fall of 2020, he recalled. \u201cDoes she not have a mother or a brother or a family member that can do that shit for her?\u201d<\/p>\n
The ex-staffer, who said he quit on the spot after that \u201clast straw,\u201d is one of 20 current and former TheWrap staffers who spoke to The Daily Beast about a toxic environment and culture of fear at the highly influential outlet.<\/p>\n
They said Waxman\u2014who was a foreign correspondent, a\u00a0New York Times\u00a0<\/em>columnist, a Pulitzer Prize nominee, and a feared Hollywood reporter before starting TheWrap in 2009\u2014has driven out one staffer after another and left current employees looking for their exits. A majority of the former employees who spoke with The Daily Beast had left the company within the past two years.<\/p>\n One former staffer compared Waxman\u2019s behavior to an infamously ruthless fictional boss. \u201cIt was very\u00a0The Devil Wears Prada<\/em>. It was really demoralizing and degrading. I would have to emotionally shut down and smile and nod,\u201d the ex-employee said, referring to the character Miranda Priestly, the tyrannical magazine editor portrayed by Meryl Streep in an Oscar-nominated turn.<\/p>\n Those who spoke with The Daily Beast alleged that Waxman has often had screaming outbursts at employees, engaged in demeaning behavior, and berated employees for dealing with family emergencies during work hours, including threatening one staffer for working from home to care for their injured child.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been around CEOs and politicians and like, actually important powerful people, and people that should be scary, like prisoners, and she is the scariest person I\u2019ve ever met,\u201d one former TheWrap writer said of Waxman.<\/p>\n The situation, sources familiar said, has been made more frustrating by the fact that Waxman\u2019s ex-husband serves as TheWrap\u2019s human resources department, leaving some employees feeling as though they have no safe place to turn. Staffers past and present who spoke with The Daily Beast did so on the condition of anonymity fearing professional or legal reprisals.<\/p>\n After The Daily Beast began conversations with TheWrap\u2019s publicist about this story, Waxman announced a day off for all employees. (According to TheWrap\u2019s spokesperson, however, she rejects that the day off was connected to this story.) And on Thursday evening, she gathered staffers for a meeting in which she promised to do better and bring in outside consulting to improve the workplace culture.<\/p>\n \u201cI was very sorry to learn that some current and former employees have had experiences at TheWrap that are not consistent with our values or the environment we work to foster. Providing a safe, enjoyable, and thriving workplace is essential to any business, and something we have always made a priority from the time we started 12 years ago,\u201d Waxman wrote in a statement to The Daily Beast. \u201cWhile I don\u2019t believe these allegations accurately reflect our current work environment, it\u2019s clear that we have some work to do, and I am committed to doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n As the founder, chief executive, top editor, and public face of TheWrap, Waxman, 58, reigns over every aspect of the digital outlet.<\/p>\n In just 12 years, under her stewardship, TheWrap has established itself as one of Hollywood\u2019s most influential and widely read trade publications, competing directly with mainstays like\u00a0Variety<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Hollywood Reporter<\/em>. Besides producing numerous entertainment scoops, the scrappy outlet has\u00a0won a number of journalism awards<\/a>\u00a0in recent years.<\/p>\n And the tenacity and skill required to create and run an influential Hollywood trade publication is not lost on staffers, with multiple current and former employees emphasizing their respect and admiration for what Waxman has accomplished. \u201cThe fact that she owns this company and is the only female sole owner of a trade publication in Hollywood is hella impressive,\u201d said one former TheWrap writer.<\/p>\n However, as another former employee said, \u201cShe runs it with an iron fist.\u201d<\/p>\n One former staffer described having been \u201cterrified to make a mistake because you would get publicly shamed or shamed in private.\u201d Another recounted Waxman\u2019s verbal tirades, calling it a \u201cgross abuse of power\u201d and lamenting that \u201cit was really toxic and I never thought I would be yelled at in such a way and watching her yell and shred other people was really unsettling.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple staffers spoke of Waxman\u2019s mercurial demeanor\u2014\u201cJekyll and Hyde\u201d-like, one described it\u2014alleging that she can often be quite pleasant, only to fly off the handle at a moment\u2019s notice when displeased.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re doing what she wants and she\u2019s in a good mood then she can be quite lovely, and if not then there can be screaming and yelling and chaos,\u201d said one current employee. Another employee, who recently departed the company, recalled Waxman melting down at her staffers before a Wrap-sponsored event when her microphone wasn\u2019t working. \u201cIt was terrifying,\u201d this person said. \u201cWe all stood there. You couldn\u2019t stop her. You had to let her yell and scream. Then the event started and the mask came on and then she was very warm to people.\u201d<\/p>\n One former staffer, who left the company within the past year, suggested Waxman\u2019s alleged frequent yelling is part of her management style of \u201ctough love.\u201d Another ex-employee said the Wrap boss can be aggressive as a way to ensure people don\u2019t \u201ctake advantage of her and not produce their best work.\u201d But in the process, this person said, Waxman has \u201ccreated a toxic environment where everyone worked defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIs Sharon a demanding boss who holds her staff to a high standard? Yes. Is she blunt when she thinks you fall short of that standard? Yes. We work in a breaking news environment,\u201d Thom Geier, Waxman\u2019s deputy and executive editor, told The Daily Beast after TheWrap suggested him as a source for this story. \u201cAnd so, can there be shouting sometimes when you want to get a story out and when you\u2019re wanting to get things hurried? Sure, that can happen. That\u2019s happened at virtually every news outlet I\u2019ve ever worked at. Is there more of that at TheWrap than there are in other places? I don\u2019t really think so.\u201d Waxman is \u201cthe ultimate pro,\u201d added TheWrap\u2019s chief revenue officer Lynne Segal, in a similarly arranged conversation.<\/p>\n Other sources also expressed dismay over the lack of personal and professional boundaries in TheWrap\u2019s workplace. Receiving a berating call from Waxman late into the evening can be a common experience, current and former employees said, as is the CEO using the company\u2019s Slack channel to upbraid employees or air potentially offensive thoughts.<\/p>\n At one point, in messages reviewed by The Daily Beast, Waxman lamented social mores against\u00a0deadnaming transgender people<\/a>, writing, \u201cThis may make a trans person feel better but I bet it\u2019s painful as hell to parents who lovingly chose that name for their baby. Must the new destroy all vestiges of the old?\u201d (A spokesperson for TheWrap said \u201cthe Slack in question was in reference to a personal friend and their experience with their transgender child. Nothing more, nothing less. Sharon fully supports the transgender community with no exception.\u201d)<\/p>\n Even more troubling, insiders said, was her treatment of colleagues experiencing family emergencies during work hours.<\/p>\n There was the aforementioned incident from last year, in which Waxman allegedly scolded a staffer for taking his fianc\u00e9e to an oncologist for a cancer check-up. After working the entire weekend on a project, this now-former employee said, Waxman cursed at him over the phone for taking a few hours off to tend to his future wife. (\u201cThis is not Sharon\u2019s recollection of this incident,\u201d wrote a spokesperson for TheWrap.)<\/p>\n In another incident recalled by four sources, Waxman allegedly chastised a reporter who was concerned for her father\u2019s safety during the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California. The reporter\u2019s father was a member of a golf course located near the terror attack.<\/p>\n \u201cSharon stormed out of her office and told her in front of the entire newsroom that it is highly unlikely your dad had golf in the middle of the workday,\u201d recalled one witness, a now-former Wrap employee. \u201cWe need to get the story out and then you can call him.\u201d (\u201cThis is not Sharon\u2019s recollection of this incident,\u201d wrote a spokesperson for TheWrap.)<\/p>\n And a former senior staffer recounted to The Daily Beast how, in 2015, her child dislocated his elbow and she had to hurry over to the emergency room during a workday. Following the accident, the woman worked from home for two days and was threatened with her job if she did not return to the office immediately. (\u201cSharon unequivocally denies threatening to fire this employee over not coming into the office,\u201d wrote a spokesperson for TheWrap.)<\/p>\n The woman quit TheWrap several weeks later. And she recalled confronting Waxman on her last day, making specific mention of the treatment she received during her son\u2019s incident. According to the ex-staffer, Waxman \u201ctold me she didn’t believe anyone who was working at home was actually working and that I should have better childcare for my child.\u201d A separate firsthand witness corroborated the exchange.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t say this lightly,\u201d another former TheWrap staffer bluntly said: \u201cSharon Waxman is one of the most awful people that I have known in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n TheWrap has always had high turnover: At least nine people among a staff of just a few dozen have left in recent months, for example. And while many of the former employees who spoke with The Daily Beast cited frustrations with Waxman\u2019s behavior, others said departures are often due to a churn-like editorial culture in which staffers feel overworked and underpaid. (In a statement, TheWrap\u2019s spokesperson said, \u201cSharon notes that many of the departed staffers went to work in non-journalism jobs.\u201d)<\/p>\n Much of the site\u2019s traffic over the past few years, sources noted, has been generated by a team of low-paid writers and freelancers internally nicknamed \u201cThe Squad.\u201d While the outlet charges subscribers $15 per month to access \u201cexclusive\u201d content\u2014columns by Waxman and other writers, along with an industry newsletter\u2014much of the day-to-day content on the site consists of this group of writers\u2019 aggregated news items with sensationalized headlines.<\/p>\n Several former members of \u201cThe Squad\u201d told The Daily Beast that they were paid a very low base salary\u2014typically around $30,000 per year\u2014along with a bonus structure based on the number of page views they generated per month. Although staffers were told they could essentially set their own hours, these former staffers said, the reality of the situation dictated that writers dedicated extremely long hours to TheWrap in order to make a more livable wage.<\/p>\n Discontent over low pay and high expectations may be fairly commonplace in digital media but, sources said, the situation at TheWrap is sometimes exacerbated by staffers being forced into humiliating situations in order to cut costs.<\/p>\n When TheWrap sends reporters on trips to major entertainment events, multiple former and current staffers said, Waxman has been known to make employees\u2014sometimes of different genders\u2014share bedrooms and even beds at times. \u201cMy female colleague and I shared a room with double beds and no partitions for any sort of privacy,\u201d one former male employee said about one work trip to New York. (TheWrap\u2019s spokesperson said Waxman \u201cdisputes that staffers were asked to share beds.\u201d)<\/p>\n Elsewhere, three sources separately recalled how Waxman blew up several years ago after finding out her assistant had offered business cards to incoming and existing editorial staffers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Sharon got the invoice, she lost her mind and convened a meeting where she said not only would those expenses be coming out of our pockets because she didn’t approve them, but sort of expected everyone to go around and offer penance for ordering business cards,\u201d one former employee said. \u201cIt was insane.\u201d<\/p>\n Though, as sources said, Waxman threatened to dock employees the cost of the business cards\u2014 roughly $30 per box\u2014she eventually backed down. Top editors sent the staff an email saying the company was \u201ccovering the costs in this one instance.\u201d<\/p>\n Waxman \u201creally treats her employees like the worst kind of robber baron factory owner ever,\u201d an ex-staffer said.<\/p>\n Workplace tensions at TheWrap reached a boiling point in the summer of 2020.<\/p>\n Shortly after George Floyd\u2019s murder at the hands of a white police officer sparked nationwide protests over police brutality and racism, Waxman commissioned a guest blog by crisis communications consultant and regular TheWrap contributor Ross Johnson, titled \u201cWhy Darnella Frazier Is the Most Influential Filmmaker of the Century.\u201d<\/p>\n The article quickly drew public condemnation for its tone-deafness in comparing Frazier\u2019s camera-phone footage of Floyd\u2019s murder to the grand directorial work of filmmakers like Orson Welles and Martin Scorsese.<\/p>\n Five days later,\u00a0Waxman released a grudging statement<\/a>\u00a0apologizing for the article: \u201cDue to a failure in editing, this post fell short of TheWrap\u2019s standards. It lacked focus and context, and missed the mark in its stated aim: to celebrate the brave young woman whose video of George Floyd\u2019s killing has sparked worldwide outcry and renewed calls to end racial inequality. We sincerely apologize to our readers for that failure. We defend [author Ross] Johnson\u2019s right to his opinion, and we have no interest in trying to make our shortcomings disappear. So we are leaving the post up on our site, as is.\u201d<\/p>\n Internally at TheWrap, however, staffers still chafed at the post and Waxman\u2019s handling of the situation. Eventually the vast majority of reporters, writers, and editors signed a letter excoriating Waxman and Geier, the executive editor, for failing to take their concerns seriously, demanding that they remove the post from the website.<\/p>\n \u201cIt troubles us as a newsroom that you have failed to see how TheWrap has callously allowed this writer to comment so carelessly on the brutalization and trauma of Black bodies and minds as if it were a film to be reviewed,\u201d read the letter, which was obtained and reviewed by The Daily Beast.<\/p>\n Beyond removing the post, the letter further demanded that Waxman \u201ctake a hard look at the culture that has fostered in your newsroom.\u201d The staffers fumed: \u201cWe make these requests out of care for the future of TheWrap and its reputation, and we cannot allow this to simply \u2018blow over.\u2019 Until change happens within this newsroom, and until TheWrap represents the values of its staff, we will not be able to move on.\u201d Ultimately, after Geier and Waxman placed an editor\u2019s note on the blog, according to several former staffers, the article was fully removed from the site.<\/p>\n The same month as the controversial George Floyd op-ed, staffers were outraged by Waxman\u2019s decision to\u00a0deadname\u00a0Transparent\u00a0<\/em>creator Joey Soloway<\/a>\u00a0on the cover of TheWrap\u2019s magazine. With Soloway announcing that they now identified as non-binary, Waxman made the final decision on a front-page headline that read: \u201cJoey (Not Jill) Soloway On The Legacy Of Transparent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI was just horrified,\u201d one now-former employee said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for TheWrap wrote: \u201cThe decision to also include Joey\u2019s deadname was a choice made to clarify to readers who they were referring to as this was right at the moment Joey publicly announced their new name in June 2020. TheWrap is completely supportive of Joey and the entire trans community.\u201d<\/p>\n When TheWrap\u2019s staffers have complaints about mistreatment in the workplace, they may feel as though they have nowhere to turn. That\u2019s because, current and former employees noted, Waxman\u2019s adviser and now-former husband Claude Memmi is the company\u2019s head of human resources.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no one to go to,\u201d one recently departed staffer sighed. Another ex-employee remarked how HR effectively \u201cdoes not exist\u201d at TheWrap. \u201cI didn\u2019t tell him anything. Like you\u2019re literally sleeping with my boss,\u201c said another former staffer, who noted that Memmi was hired for the position while still married to Waxman.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, no one goes to Claude,\u201d a current staffer at TheWrap told The Daily Beast, out of a fear that he will go \u201cstraight to Sharon.\u201d And so, the employee said, \u201ceveryone kind of fights their own battles.\u201d<\/p>\n And walking away from TheWrap may not be so easy either.<\/p>\n According to multiple sources familiar with the situation, Waxman requires many of her employees to sign multi-year contracts with restrictive non-compete clauses\u2014 an apparent effort to prevent them from taking their skills to go work for a competitor like\u00a0Variety<\/em>\u00a0or Deadline.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for TheWrap wrote that \u201cSharon runs a business and brings on and trains talented journalists. Like other media companies, multi year employee contracts are standard for the industry.\u201d<\/p>\n Waxman has threatened legal action against multiple rivals who\u2019ve hired away her employees.<\/p>\n For instance, Waxman\u00a0unsuccessfully sued The Information,<\/a>\u00a0alleging the outlet intentionally poached reporter Matt Pressberg in December 2017 while he was under a two-year contract with TheWrap. A judge found Pressberg\u2019s non-compete clause violated California law by restraining him from engaging in his profession.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation, when senior writer Matt Donnelly accepted a position with\u00a0Variety<\/em>\u00a0in 2018, Waxman sent threatening legal letters to both him and the magazine\u2019s owner Penske Media. Still under contract at the time, Donnelly was in the final months of his multi-year deal when\u00a0Variety<\/em>\u00a0hired him.<\/p>\n In his conversation with The Daily Beast, Waxman\u2019s deputy Geier even went so far as to make the baseless suggestion that the allegations, and even this article, were a conspiracy spun by rival Penske Media: \u201cI\u2019d be curious to know how many of the people that you\u2019ve spoken to who have complained about Sharon Waxman and TheWrap are now working for Jay Penske…. I\u2019m fascinated by the notion that, you know, there are people who went to work for Sharon and then went to work for Jay Penske. And you know we\u2019re the last of the independent trades, and the only one that isn\u2019t funded by a Saudi government that murders journalists.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Waxman herself seems to have acknowledged that not all is well at TheWrap.<\/p>\n \u201cThankfully, we have a team of resilient, creative, and collaborative people who have risen to the occasion and delivered to help us thrive. TheWrap remains the only independent news organization in entertainment media today, an accomplishment that is made possible by our extraordinary team and the top-quality journalism it produces,\u201d she continued in her statement. \u201cWe are making the commitment to our employees to hire outside expertise to help assess the culture and address these concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n