Dr. Phil Reacts to Accusations of Toxic Workplace Environment

Dr. Phil is speaking out.

Patrick Morris, his personal attorney, issued a statement regarding accusations of a toxic workplace environment against Dr. Phil‘s long-running daytime talk show, after a dozen current and former employees spoke to BuzzFeed News about the alleged verbal abuse, fear, intimidation and racism they faced behind the scenes.

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“It is a clickbait story, because as everyone knows, Dr. Phil sells tickets,” he said to Variety.

“BuzzFeed was offered dozens of current and former staff members to talk to but when BuzzFeed started hearing the truth, which ruined their salacious narrative, they declined. Dr. Phil focuses on content for the program and doesn’t get involved in staff relations, but the staff at the program in no way uses ethnic origin such as described,” he continued.

ViacomCBS said “creating safe and inclusive working environments is a top priority.”

“We provide multiple avenues through which employees can report complaints to the company both on the record and anonymously. We encourage any employee who believes that they or others within the company have been treated unfairly to report it without a fear of retaliation. We take seriously all such reports.”

In addition to the toxic workplace claims, seven of the employees accused the show of manipulating guests.

“We were specifically instructed, ‘Make sure that she doesn’t take her medication before she goes onstage,’ because they wanted her to look unstable and quote-unquote, ‘crazy,’ for lack of a better term,” one employee told BuzzFeed News.

“She did take the medication because no one got there in time and I remember thinking, ‘My God, I don’t want to be the one to tell them or dissuade them from that.’ And that’s all for the sake of TV. Obviously this girl should be on her medication and that’s what we’re trying to get her help for, but for the sake of TV they wanted her to look off the rails.”

Click here to see the show’s response, as well as the original allegations.

Danielle Bregoli aka Bhad Bhabie spoke out about her traumatizing experience at the Utah ranch where Dr. Phil sends teens last year.