A woman has claimed that she was dismissed from her job at a London TV company because she was too good looking.
Emma Hulse said her manager at UNIT TV in Soho told her to leave a freelance shift because she ‘should be on a catwalk’.
The 24-year-old said she was only five minutes in to her eight-hour shift when she was told to leave.
Hulse told the Evening Standard:
We were supposed to finish at 6pm and I got there for 9.30am and when I got there this other runner started explaining to me what I should do.
Then they send me on a run. Then my agent text me that I’m no longer required.
I got there and spoke to the line manager and he asked me, ‘are you a model? Are you not doing catwalks, why are you not at the front of house?’
I was wearing a lipstick but from my perspective I was not inappropriate. I was wearing a shirt and trousers. I really didn’t think I looked inappropriate.
Hulse said that the manager then took her number and ‘suggested we go for a drink’.
She added: “I was quite disappointed to be sent home. I didn’t really know what to do. Maybe that company employs plain looking people and maybe if you don’t look that way they don’t take you, maybe I was a distraction.”
Hulse says that along with her freelance work, she also does camera operating. “No one has sent me home because of the way I look. Especially within a creative agency you should be free to wear what you want,” she said.
The manager in question, who had been at the company for less than three months at the time, has since left his role.
Adam Luckwell, owner of UNIT TV told the Standard that there were ‘a number of things’ about the manager that he was not happy with, saying he was ‘a bad fit’ for the company.
Luckwell said he was not aware of any situation with Hulse, but said if she ‘experienced any distress from dealing with a member of the company’s staff we would like to sincerely apologise’.
