Earlier today, BuzzFeed News released a scathing exposè into the toxic environment fostered on the Dr. Phil Show, as alleged by former employees. While some employees interviewed refuted negative characterizations that others whole-heartedly supported, both groups intimated that intense work environments which can be construed as abusive are par for the course in Hollywood.
BuzzFeed’s reporting largely centers on the recollections of a dozen current and former employees who remember working at the Dr. Phil Show as being tantamount to entering a “war zone.” One employee said they had to seek therapy after working at the show (which is theoretically about mental health), while another employee making $10 per hour said they couldn't afford a therapist they felt they needed to deal with the toxic workplace. Executive producer Carla Pennington is the highest-ranking staffer on the show connected to the alleged workplace abuse, with one former employee claiming Pennington “reprimanded me so severely that I couldn’t breathe.” As for Phil McGraw himself, none of the people interviewed by BuzzFeed witnessed toxic or abusive behavior on this part — though Tiffany Clark, who worked as a page from 2019-2020, questioned how he could not know about it. Employees, whose names were withheld from the article, allege being discouraged from booking BIPOC guests and encouraged to prevent guests with mental illnesses from taking their medication in order for them to “look unstable and quote-unquote, ‘crazy.’” And all of it, they said, was considered business as usual on the set of one of the most successful daytime TV shows of the last 20 years.
