While it sounded like Amy Pascal decided to leave her job as Sony Pictures Entertainment co-chair herself last week, she said on Wednesday that she was actually “fired” after her email inbox was opened to the world last fall.
Pascal announced plans to leave the top post at Sony on Feb. 5. She will still produce projects on the Sony lot and will even co-produce the Spider-Man movies with Marvel.
Her departure came after the studio was engulfed in a controversy over leaked emails. Several of Pascal’s previously private messages included insulting comments about Hollywood executives and stars and she had to apologize. The hack attack came from a group called the Guardians of Peace and the U.S. government officially credited North Korea with the attack, which was in retaliation for Seth Rogen’s The Interview.
Pascal finally got a chance to speak out on Wednesday at the Women in the World conference in San Francisco, where she spoke with journalist Tina Brown.
“All the women here are doing incredible things in this world. All I did was get fired,” Pascal said, reports Re/Code. “Everyone knows everything about me. What am I doing here?”
She went into details about the mood at SPE when documents started leaking, noting that “people were really scared.”
Pascal also noted that her relationships weren’t as destroyed as anyone outside of Hollywood thinks. “If we all actually were nice, it wouldn’t work,” she said, adding that Angelina Jolie “didn’t care” about the insults Pascal wrote about the actress.
Brown asked Pascal about those documents that showed how women were paid less than men by the studio.
“I’ve paid [Jennifer Lawrence] a lot more money since then, I promise you,” Pascal replied. “Here’s the problem: I run a business. People want to work for less money, I pay them less money. … Women shouldn’t work for less money. They should know what they’re worth. Women shouldn’t take less. ‘Stop, you don’t need the job that bad.'”
image courtesy of Jennifer Graylock/INFphoto.com
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