Twins Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are now facing a lawsuit after one of their interns claims she worked a 50-hour week without pay.
Shahista Lalani was a design intern for the twins’ fashion label Row in 2012, and she said she was treated poorly and worked endlessly for no pay, which is why she filed a class-action lawsuit alleging wage theft, Page Six reports.
“I was talking to [the head technical designer] all day, all night,” she said in the suit. “Other interns have cried. I’d see a lot of kids crying doing coffee runs, photocopying stuff. She was very demanding.”
“I was doing the work of three interns. I was talking to her all day, all night. E-mails at nighttime for the next day, like 10 p.m. at night.”
(Photo: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Lalani also said she was hospitalized because she got dehydrated while on the job.
“It was like 100 degrees outside. I’d just be sweating to death. I probably carried like 50 pounds worth of trench coats.”
“The head technical designer was like, ‘Go get my Advil. I need this and this because I’m feeling sick and I have this meeting.’ When we weren’t doing something, they’d be like, ‘Organize the buttons in the back by color code.’ You’re cleaning. You don’t get a set 15-minute break.”
“You just go with their crazy flow. You just [got] caught up in the pressure.”