'MacGyver' star Lucas Till says fired CBS boss Peter Lenkov pushed him to breaking point and made him suicidal
'MacGyver' actor Lucas Till, in an interview with Vanity Fair, spoke about how the toxic on-set environment created by recently-fired executive producer Peter M. Lenkov drove the actor to his “breaking point." In fact, Till said that the first year on the show left him feeling “suicidal.”
In the long-form report titled ‘The Fall of a CBS Showrunner’, published on Monday, July 20, Vanity Fair spoke with 30 sources about their experiences with the producer.
The 29-year-old actor detailed how he dealt with verbal abuse, bullying, and body-shaming from Lenkov. “I've never worked this hard in my life, and I am fine with hard work. But the way Peter treats people is just unacceptable. I was suicidal that first year on the show, because of the way he made me feel. But the way he's treated the people around me -- that's just my breaking point,” he said.
Till claimed that he went to top CBS execs with his concerns about Lenkov, both in 2017 and 2020. “I think they just took it as some crazy actor trying to get more money,” he said. “Essentially, they didn’t take it seriously.”
In May of this year, Till sent a five-page letter to Ellen Goldsmith, the head of human resources at CBS Television Studios, alleging, among other things, that Lenkov had behaved in an unprofessional manner not just toward him but toward ‘MacGyver’ cast member Meredith Eaton.
In his letter, he wrote: “There was always something about my appearance that wouldn’t please him like when I was in a hospital gown and our producer… thought it was funny that [Lenkov] said my legs were ‘f***ing hideous’ and we can never show them again. Honestly, I found some humor in that comment as well, but you can imagine if that was a more sensitive spot that he had hit, and often did. Just like the time he screamed at [a director] ‘Oh, my f***ing God! Tuck his shirt in, he looks like a little f***ing boy.’ Just hire a 35-year-old then.”
Lenkov’s lawyer Dale Kinsella, however, told Vanity Fair that Till’s allegations regarding the abuse and body-shaming were “100 percent false and untrue,” adding that Lenkov “has championed him from the very beginning and has been nothing but supportive of him.”
In that same letter, he also detailed an injury Eaton suffered and her subsequent recovery. “Meredith suffered an injury on set that was not dealt with properly … and had to get a hip replacement surgery and in-home care to recover fast enough to return to work the next season,” Till wrote. "Peter would frantically email and call her insisting on knowing when she would be able to walk at a fast pace again.”
On July 7, Lenkov, the showrunner for ‘Hawaii Five-0’, ‘MacGyver’ and ‘Magnum P.I.’, was fired from CBS after an investigation into allegations of creating a toxic work environment. Lenkov, who had been the subject of two previous investigations into misconduct, was let go of his overall deal with CBS TV Studios.
Lenkov, following this, issued an apology where he said, “I accept responsibility for what I am hearing and am committed to doing the work that is required to do better and be better.”
Executive producer Monica Macer is taking over as showrunner for ‘MacGyver’ ahead of season 5.