Inside Peter Lenkov's abusive workplace: MacGyver star Lucas Till was "suicidal" over mistreatment

Vanity Fair

Lenkov, who was creator and showrunner of CBS' Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver and Magnum P.I. reboots, was fired July 7 over his toxic workplace behavior. But there is more to his story, reports Maureen Ryan, who spoke to more than 30 sources for a lengthy Vanity Fair article. Ryan notes that "the total budget for all three shows was at least $230 million per year. Controlling nearly a quarter of a billion dollars—not to mention hundreds of careers—gave Lenkov enormous power." Ryan details how Lenkov allegedly regularly screamed at a Hawaii Five-0 writer, mistreated another Hawaii Five-0 writer who was battling cancer, mistreated an actress who's a little person after she suffered an on-set injury. She also delved into the highly publicized Hawaii Five-0 exits of stars Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park in 2017. And shortly before Lenkov was fired, Ryan spoke to MacGyver's Lucas Till, who recounted numerous instances of verbal abuse, bullying, and body-shaming that he says took a serious toll on him. Till says while Lenkov rarely visited the set, he was ultimately responsible for its tone, and that he created a hostile work environment. “I’ve never worked this hard in my life, and I am fine with hard work,” said Till. “But the way Peter treats people is just unacceptable. I was suicidal that first year on the show, because of the way he made me feel. But the way he’s treated the people around me—that’s just my breaking point.” In an email to CBS' human resources department, he wrote: “There was always something about my appearance that wouldn’t please him like when I was in a hospital gown and our producer…thought it was funny that (Lenkov) said my legs were ‘f*cking hideous’ and we can never show them again. Honestly, I found some humor in that comment as well, but you can imagine if that was a more sensitive spot that he had hit, and often did. Just like the time he screamed at (a director) ‘Oh, my f*cking God! Tuck his shirt in, he looks like a little f*cking boy.’ Just hire a 35 year old then.” Till added in that H.R. note that “I’ve struggled with maintaining ‘man weight’ on the show because of the stress, no time to work out, and an unpredictable schedule for proper nourishment.” Ryan explains why it took so long for CBS to fire Lenkov: "If you write about issues of workplace abuse, exploitation, and inappropriate behavior in Hollywood, you’ll inevitably discover an unfortunate tendency to overlook—or even quietly enable—offenses that don’t fall under the categories of sexual harassment and sexual assault," says Ryan. "Those abuses are, of course, horrific (and still all too common, despite the bravery of those bringing these crimes to light). But the ways in which people entering—and leading—Hollywood culture are trained, implicitly or explicitly, to let almost everything else slide is concerning to say the least." One source who worked for Lenkov told Ryan: “His mentality seems to be, ‘People just can’t handle things anymore.’ It’s a mentality that’s unfortunately still pretty common in the industry: ‘This isn’t physical abuse. I’m not hitting you. I’m not sexually assaulting you. You just can’t take how this industry works. You’re just weak.’”