The Last Of Us star Ashley Johnson, plus several other women, sue former Critical Role staffer for abuse
Johnson, who also appeared in the Last Of Us TV show, is one of seven women accusing former Critical Role employee Brian Foster of abuse and sexual assault
Aux News Abuse
Several women—including Ashley Johnson, who starred as Ellie in best-selling video game series The Last Of Us, and portrayed a key role in its recent HBO TV adaptation—have come forward with accusations of abuse and sexual assault against former Critical Role employee Brian Foster. Johnson (who was previously in a long-term relationship with Foster), plus five other named women and one whose identity has been anonymized, have now filed a lawsuit against Foster, accusing him of a “disturbing pattern and practice of chilling and depraved behavior towards women,” and suing him on charges of “domestic violence, sexual battery, assault, stalking, civil rights violations, gender violence, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress.”
In the suit, Johnson alleges that Foster, who she began dating in 2012, frequently abused drugs and alcohol, and, after their relationship ended earlier this year, attempted to extort her for $150,000. (He is also accused of using her home’s security system to track her movements.) Her sister, Haylie Langseth, is also a plaintiff in the suit, saying Foster groped her in front of several people, and that she felt pressured not to report him because she feared he would retaliate against her sister.
Foster worked for Critical Role for several years, appearing on multiple specials from the Dungeons & Dragons-based web series; he also hosted several official talk shows centered on the franchise’s content. He left Critical Role in 2021, with the company, at the time, expressing “mad love and support” for him; the lawsuit now alleges that he was actually fired, at least in part over his behavior on social media. In July of 2023, Critical Role pulled all of its content featuring Foster from its channels, after Johnson, one of the show’s key cast members, filed a restraining order against him, first making allegations of abuse public.
In addition to the accusations from Johnson and her sister, the lawsuit also includes accusations of verbal abuse and groping from several other women, including subordinates at Critical Role, who state that Foster used his status as the company to gain access to women. Foster has yet to comment on the lawsuit, while Critical Role—which gained increased prominence over the last few years, after its first campaign was adapted by Amazon into the animated The Legend Of Vox Machina—issued the following statement:
We are aware of the civil complaint that includes disturbing details about the alleged behavior of one of our ex-employees, Brian W. Foster. While we can’t get into the specifics of the lawsuit, we want to make it clear that we had no knowledge of any of his alleged behavior. It is heartbreaking to us that some of our colleagues went through this, and we’re committed to supporting them however we can. We are working with our HR team and our staff directly to ensure our workplace and culture live up to all of our expectations.
[via THR]
20 Comments
We are working with our HR team and our staff directly to ensure our workplace and culture live up to all of our expectations.
I’m doubting that HR was doing anything except gently letting victims know that there would be life-wrecking retaliation for saying anything.
You really want to get disgusted? Investigate if a company or a government agency legally has to have an HR person on staff? I don’t mean the person who does your payroll or whatnot, but an actual HR who acts as the middle-person when conflicts arise with management and provides actual conflict management solutions and is properly trained.TL:DR – naaaahhhh…
Remember: HR IS THERE FOR THE COMPANY, NOT FOR YOU.The company pays the HR drones’ salary. Not you. Also, I’ve met maybe two HR drones who had an IQ above single digits.
I haven’t been paying much attention to Critical Role for a while so I missed the restraining order, but prior to that I’d noticed she had stopped wearing her ring which I thought was a little odd. The full story is a lot worse than I ever could have imagined.
Given his behavior, he’s clearly a predator clean or sober, but I also wonder if he ever really was the latter or just had switched over other less noticeable drugs than heroin and continued on his downward spiral for himself and everyone around him. The guy just sounded like bad, bad news all along.
Yeah, I’d noticed the ring thing this season and had chalked it up to strain from the disparity in success after he’d gone to start his own thing and basically failed at it. More than one Hollywood relationship has fallen apart for similar reasons.But then they pulled all his content and I googled and found out about the restraining order and it was just a string of ‘holy shit… Holy SHIT. What the fuck is wrong with this dude?’ (Locking her out of the internet on all her devices and changing the Ring camera passwords. He had a fucking garotte with his airsoft stuff. The ‘Robert Blake’s Garden’ instagram post.)
And that was BEFORE this story broke.
It’s not difficult not to harass and abuse women, men! I’ve never done it! Neither have millions if not billions of other men!
You’re right it’s not hard. I don’t know if billions can make that claim. I’m afraid the vast majority of us just suck(ed).
Neither have millions if not billions of other men!I envy your optimism.
the lawsuit now alleges that he was actually fired, at least in part over his behavior on social media
Do you want to elaborate on this?
Agreed I was very curious and disappointed they didn’t go into this.
He was threatening fans of the show who voiced opinions he didn’t agree with
He is also accused of using her home’s security system to track her movements.
Oh snap. I am so paranoid about this sort of thing.
This is very upsetting. Ashley Johnson is fantastic and deserves better than this.
She was married to him for 11 years while he was assaulting all of these women and abusing drugs and alcohol and her?That makes me so sad. She’s such an amazing person I hate that she had to endure this.
I don’t think they were married
They were engaged from sometime in 2017 or 2018 – the latter is when they announced it – but never got married, which surprised me a bit (and probably was a warning sign; I’m glad even in midst of all this abuse some small voice in her head realized she was in trouble.) I’m sure one of the videos that no longer exists is when Foster interviewed Johnson during lockdown in his Critical Role side gig when they went into a few more details about themselves than had been released.
Usually there’s a comment or two saying, “Why didn’t she just leave him?”
I’ve been binge-watching a documentary series on Max called “Evil Lives Here” and the format is the interviewing of the family members of serial killers or serial abusers.
Listening to these people has really opened my eyes to the reality that it’s extremely complicated to leave an abuser. Victims are often beat down emotionally, and have intense feelings of shame and fear. Unfortunately, we still have a way to go for the systems of justice to work properly as well—oftentimes victims aren’t believed, even when they go to the authorities. When people are beaten so hard they go to the hospital, they don’t rat on their abuser because they fear they’ll get it worse if they do.
It is wild to see Critical Role, which I still (wrongly!) think of as a group of a voice actors doing a live stream in their spare time, have to issue a legalese-filled cover-our-ass HR statement. “We had no knowledge of his alleged behavior” is such weird phrasing when one of his victims is one of the founders of your company.
It doesn’t mean she confided in any of them until recently, victims of abuse rarely do
Perhaps not, but also find it highly unlikely that they’d didn’t show any signs of it and that none of it was picked up by the other people.99% sure they knew but didn’t do anything about it.
Haven’t seen much of critical role, but the little I have seen of them. Especially when guesting other shows/places did make them out as creeps. Which is a bummer because it’ll just paint the gaming/nerd community with that aftertaste…