A former employee at a Burbank-based studio has settled her lawsuit against her ex-employer in which she alleged she was forced to quit in large part because of a supervisor’s inappropriate comments that included his “sexually fetishizing” Korean women like her.
Olivia Cordell filed the Los Angeles Superior Court complaint against Gen Z Studios LLC, alleging gender discrimination and harassment, wrongful constructive termination, whistleblower retaliation, failure to prevent discrimination, harassment and retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Cordell sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages. The settlement terms were not disclosed during a hearing Monday in which Judge Lia Martin was informed of the accord.
Defense attorneys denied Cordell’s allegations. In a cross-complaint brought in August 2024, the studio lawyers maintained that she breached a contract prohibiting the publication of behind-the-scene videos that were the property of Gen Z and exploited them for her own benefit with her online followers.
According to her suit, Cordell is an actress, writer and YouTube personality who was hired by Gen Z in May 2019 for duties including producing and camera operating. Beginning in July 2019, her supervisor told her during photographing and filming to “Open your eyes, Olivia. Your eyes look closed in all of the photos,” often laughing during the comments, the suit alleged.
The boss also frequently told Cordell that there were things she could not do on camera because her eyes were too small and that she could not look wide-eyed and shocked due to her national origin, the suit stated.
“During this time, (the supervisor) made comments sexually fetishizing Korean women like me, stating that his next wife would be a Korean woman and would constantly comment on my appearance, telling me how beautiful I was and making back-handed compliments that I was still very attractive despite my thin eyes,” Cordell stated in a sworn declaration.
The supervisor barred Cordell from certain projects based on her race-based characteristics, she further said.
“Specifically, (the boss) excluded me from marketing photo shoots because he believed my eyes were not big enough to make a shocked expression,” Cordell said. “I felt humiliated when he did this.”
Cordell said her mental health began to decline.
“I experienced frequent anxiety and panic attacks, and bouts of depression as a result,” Cordell said. “I had frequent nightmares and would break out in hives.”
Fed up with the alleged workplace harassment, Cordell left Gen Z in 2020, she said.