How rich people & celebs allegedly treat their staffs

The lifestyles of the rich and famous require lots of help. But apparently just because millionaires know how to make money, it doesn’t they know how to be good employers.

Last month, legendary music mogul Irving Azoff — who has managed such chart-toppers as Bon Jovi and the Eagles — and his wife Shelli were sued by their former housekeeper Gloria Martinez.

According to the lawsuit filed by Martinez’s attorney, the couple was supposed to pay Martinez $1,500 per week, but that rate, according to the claim, “varied in amount” from week to week.

Nevertheless, she worked, on and off, some 10 years for the Azoffs at their Southern California mansion, sometimes without lunch, the suit claims. But Martinez alleges she was terminated earlier this year after missing work to undergo a biopsy and then telling her employers she would likely need to take further time off in order to get a hysterectomy.

Shelli, a friend of Kris Jenner’s who has appeared on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” but apparently has no medical training, is alleged to have maintained that a hysterectomy is not the “correct treatment” for the pelvic pain Martinez was experiencing.

According to the suit, Martin had a doctor’s appointment on March 10 and they fired her on March 9.  Her attorney alleges in the complaint that “defendants’ termination of Martinez’s employment was done with malice and oppression.” The suit maintains that it was “intended to retaliate against Martinez for having exercised her right to request reasonable accommodations due to her disability.” 

A call to Azoff’s company, Full Stop Management, for comment was not returned.

But one aspiring actress turned nanny told The Post this is not surprised by such treatment.

The nanny, who worked for a multimillionaire family in Los Angeles who claimed ties to German royalty, recalls them being as petty as peasants.

“I was young and they kept telling me I was being paid really well — even though it was only a little bit more than minimum wage,” she recalled. “They had houses all over the place and were building a giant home in Amagansett. And they counted down the time I spent with the family to the minute. Sometimes they paid me with dollar bills and coins. If I left a minute early, it was subtracted from my pay.”

The nanny, who left the job after around one year, recalled the weirdest part of her job: “They had a two-year-old son. Every day I had to iron his pajamas for him.”

It could have been worse. As reported in The Post, one family made their nanny drive a Zamboni to smooth the skating surface of a private ice rink; another set of parents sought a child-minder who could shoot blanks to keep bears away from the country house.

“The highest class of people are used to getting what they want, when they want it. They have senses of entitlement and expectations that can be unrealistic,” Michelle LaRowe, editor of Nanny magazine and an 18-year-long veteran of nannying, told The Post. “I had a potential employer who wanted me to change the family dog’s diaper. I did not take that nannying job.”

And celebrities can apparently be just as bad, if not worse than regular old millionaires. According to a lawsuit filed in June 2021, singer Brandy — who goes by her first name professionally, thought her surname is Norwood — stands accused of firing her housekeeper for getting old. Maria Elizabeth Castaneda, who had been Norwood’s housekeeper for 20 years and was paid $125 per day, accuses Norwood of “not wanting an older employee.” Court documents maintain that Brandy and her team “wrongfully terminated” Castaneda.

Norwood’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment

Other allegations can be much more unsavory.

“How about the man of the house who walks around naked – as if the housekeeper is invisible,” attorney Gloria Allred, who often represents household workers suing their employers, told The Post. “I don’t know if he is showing off or [trying] to create interest or just doesn’t care.”

When Jane Amelia Larsen worked as a chauffeur for a family of Arabian royals in Beverly Hills, there was one job requirement: Remain on call 24/7.

“If you didn’t answer the phone, you lost your job,” Larson, author of “Driving the Saudis,” told The Post.

And it wasn’t just about being on call for the family. One frequent caller was the princess’s hairdresser, who required four-hour drives to Native American casinos in Palm Springs. “And he chain-smoked. So this guy would ride in the car, windows up, filling the vehicle with smoke and singing loudly to songs on the radio,” Larson said. “He’d go in to play high-stakes slot machines all night, and I would wait for him in the smoke filled car. The first couple nights, he won and tipped me $400. Then he started to lose tens of thousands at a time — I think the princess gave him gambling money — and the tips diminished.”

Another wealthy Arab forgot about the boundaries between himself and employees. Gerold Wunstel, who worked as a chauffeur and butler in San Francisco, recalled a Saudi Arabian sheik’s outsized demands.

“He wanted me to be a drug mule,” Wunstel told The Post. “We drove through Haight Ashbury in a big-ass Mercedes so he could buy grass [illegal at the time] and coke. He was very depressed and made me hang out with him to watch terrible movies, like ‘Snakes on a Plane.’ He’d do the drugs right in front of me. I’d try not to get involved or too personal. These people are wealthy and powerful and you better get out of the way.”

Then there’s the Tribeca mom, Lynsey Plasco-Flaxman, who reportedly meant to text her husband about their nanny, Giselle Maurice, who she had suddenly discovered was African American: “NOOOOO ANOTHER BLACK PERSON,” she wrote — and accidentally sent it to the nanny. Then, claiming to feel “uncomfortable,” Plasco-Flaxman allegedly fired Maurice.

A discrimination suit, filed in 2018, followed. As for the outcome, the nanny’s lawyer told The Post, that he is “bound by a very strict NDA … [and] cannot comment on the matter.

In 2013, actress Sharon Stone faced a civil complaint about the way she treated her kids’ nanny, Erlinda Elemen. In court documents, Elemen claimed that Stone “repeatedly subjected her to numerous derogatory comments and slurs … related to her Filipino ethnicity and heritage.” The complaint also alleges that Elemen was “accused of stealing” for taking overtime pay and that Stone “forbade [Elemen] from reading the Bible in [her] room.”

Stone countersued Elemen in 2012, alleging breach of loan; according to the Daily Mail, the two settled in 2013. Castillo’s attorney Solomon Gresen would only tell The Post, “The case has been dismissed.” At the time of the charges, according to ABC News, Stone’s lawyer Marty Singer called the Castillo suit “bizarre and ridiculous.” 

It wasn’t the only time Stone was sued by an employee. In 2013, it was alleged in court documents, employee Angelica Castillo injured her back while shopping for Stone’s groceries. Although Castillo’s doctor recommended bed rest, the lawsuit claimed, Stone requested she still come in. Then, when Castillo was moving slowly, the suit alleges, the actress yelled at her and called her “stupid” and “crazy.” 

According to the complaint, Stone fired Castillo that day. The complaint claimed that it was “in retaliation for seeking medical leave and/or an accommodation.”

Other domestic workers told The Post about suspicious employers not believing they were working hard enough.

While working for an affluent family in the Midwest, Justine Mattson — who posts nanny-related content to TikTok as adhd-zebra  — told The Post of how she was once told to stand over an infant and watch the child sleep. “To make sure I complied,” she told The Post, “they aimed a nanny cam at my leg, with the crib visible, and the mom would watch me on the monitor as she worked.”

But Wunstel and Mattson knew better than to question the ridiculousness of demands — and probably for good reason. Allred told The Post that the domestic workers she represents “often are afraid of losing their jobs to the point of not wanting to call in sick.”

Ashley Funches, who toiled as a nanny for Halsey filed suit against the singer in April, claiming disability discrimination. In the suit, Funches claims was terminated a few days after texting the entertainer that she “may need to undergo a medical procedure that would require her to take a leave of absence.” According to the suit, Funches had “worked around the clock on consecutive days with little to no day of rest.”

A representative for Halsey did not respond to a request for comment.

Outrageous as all this sounds, Allred said, “What you see articulated in a lawsuit is just the tip of the iceberg. Usually these [suits] get settled confidentially and you don’t even hear of them.”

But, of course, Allred does: “I find a lot of what goes on [between the rich and their domestic workers] shocking. And I’m difficult to shock.”