Scott Rudin Broadway Return Teased Four Years After Abuse Allegations

Scott Rudin, the producer who stepped away from his Broadway productions four years ago following allegations of workplace misconduct, is quietly readying his return. According to the New York Times, Rudin reflected on what he called “bone-headed” and “narcissistic” behavior while undergoing “a decent amount of therapy.”

“I have a lot more self-control than I had four years ago,” he said. “I learned I don’t matter that much, and I think that’s very healthy … I don’t want to let anybody down. Not just myself. My husband, my family and collaborators.”

In April 2021, several employees who worked with Rudin accused him of intimidation and physical acts of aggression. “Everyone just knows he’s an absolute monster,” one said. Another added: “When you feel his spit on your face as he’s screaming at you, saying, ‘You’re worth nothing,’ it obviously makes an impact, and we’re young.”

Now, Rudin admits, “I was just too rough on people.” The producer once attached to productions of Book of Mormon, To Kill a Mockingbird, and West Side Story isn’t expecting to be welcomed back with open arms. “I’m going to try to come back and make some more good work, and people will feel how they feel,” he said. “And if some people are really angry about it, they’ll have the right to be angry about it.”

He just needs enough support to get the four plays he’s staging off the ground. Rudin claims he has already found investors and theater owners who are open to working with him, as well as writers and actors.

“It wasn’t that I felt passionately like anybody had missed me, or that I had missed it,” he said. “But I felt like I wasn’t done, and that if I still had more work I was able to make, that I should make it — that I had an obligation to something that I really care about, which is the theater.”

Rudin similarly credited that obligation with why he behaved so poorly in the first place. “I knew why I was rough on people. For a long time, it seemed like a price I could live with,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking about what price other people could live with, because producing at the level of volume that I was requires a level of narcissism. If you don’t inherently believe you’re doing better than other people, why are you doing it? There are better ways to make a living.”

If his Broadway return proves successful, Rudin will consider returning to film, too. He previously produced No Country for Old Men, Lady Bird and The Social Network. “I want to do this first,” he said. “I want to see what it feels like. I want, frankly, to make sure I’m still good at it, and I want to make sure that I’m not going to be killed by a sniper’s bullet on 45th Street.”