Roots drummer, Questlove, and NBC are being sued for racial discrimination. Two white ex-employees of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon are claiming that they were fired after Quest demanded it and they feel as though they were targeted because they are Caucasian.
The lawsuit was obtained by The Blast, and the plaintiffs Kurt Decker and Michael Cimino and both were camera operators working on the late-night show. They allege that on June 19, 2017, they received a text message from a stagehand on the show that was “unsolicited racist and misogynist.” The text was also received by Mark Kelley who is an African-American bassist for The Roots.
The plaintiffs say they did not respond to but went and reported the message to the manager of The Roots, Keith McPhee, and Bryon King, the technical production manager at NBC. Decker and Cimino were immediately suspended, and the company went on a seven-week investigation. Mark Kelley was not, and the plaintiffs are claiming at the behest of Questlove, he was not disciplined. In the same regard, the drummer is said to have “pressured NBC to fire all of the Caucasian employees involved in the incident.”
Decker and Cimino are seeking a million dollars in damages. According to sources, NBC is saying that they two former employees failed to report the text message at all.
