Damon Lindelof Responds to Explosive Allegations of Racism and Abuse on ‘Lost’: “I Failed”

An explosive new report from the book Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call For Change in Hollywood claims the cast and crew of Lost dealt with a “hostile” workplace where racism and sexism were rampant under the leadership of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. 

Journalist Maureen Ryan writes in her book, which was excerpted by Vanity Fair, that Lindelof and Cuse “tolerated or even encouraged” the workplace culture on the show that fostered “offensive” humor.

“I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel. And I’ve never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career,” Season 3 writer Monica Owusu-Breen recalled.

The excerpt included responses from Lindelof and Cuse, who both claimed they had “no recollection” of some of the claims made.

Lindelof told Ryan in 2021 that he “failed” in modeling a safe work environment on the show.

“The way that I conduct myself and the way that I treat other humans who I am responsible for and a manager of is a by-product of all the mistakes that were made.… I have significantly evolved and grown, and it shouldn’t have had to come at the cost and the trauma of people that I hurt on Lost,” he said. 

In his own response issued through a PR representative, Cuse claimed he was “not present for, nor did he hear” the comments Ryan brought up. 

In the report, writers claimed they “really didn’t like their characters of color” and were instead told to focus on the “hero characters,” all of which were white. One source shared that while they did write a few scenes for the people of color on the show, they were told, “Nobody cares about these other characters. Just give them a few scenes on another beach.”

Harold Perrineau — who was fresh off of two Matrix movies, Romeo + Juliet, and Oz — told Ryan he was a “believer” of the show and felt “really hopeful” when he signed on. But by Season 2, he was beginning to feel underutilized and took issue with how little they focused on his character’s missing son. 

“I don’t think I can do that. I can’t be another person who doesn’t care about missing Black boys, even in the context of fiction, right? This is just furthering the narrative that nobody cares about Black boys, even Black fathers,” he said. 

After he raised his concerns and the script was rewritten, Perrineau claimed that Cuse told him he would not be returning after Season 2.

“I was like, ‘Wait a minute, what’s happening?’” he recalled. Perrineau said Cuse told him, “‘Well, you know, you said to us, if we don’t have anything good for you, you want to go,'” adding, “I was just asking for equal depth.”

Regarding Perrineau’s exit from the show, multiple sources claimed Lindelof said Perrineau that “called me racist, so I fired his ass.”

Lindelof said he did not recall saying that.

“What can I say? Other than it breaks my heart that that was Harold’s experience,” he said. “And I’ll just cede that the events that you’re describing happened 17 years ago, and I don’t know why anybody would make that up about me.”

Sources also recalled a number of racist jokes or statements that were made in the writers’ room, including racist storylines for certain characters.

“Would it shock you to learn or believe that, despite the fact that I completely and totally validate your word cloud, that I was oblivious, largely oblivious, to the adverse impacts that I was having on others in that writers room during the entire time that the show was happening?” Lindelof told Ryan. 

“Do you feel like I knew the whole time and just kept doing it?” he said.