Tony Awards face backlash after exiled Hollywood producer wins years after bullying claims

Broadway fans are up in arms after producer Scott Rudin won a Tony Award for best revival of a play Sunday, four years after he left the industry over claims of bullying and bad behavior.

Rudin, 67, took home the coveted trophy as the lead producer on the revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman, which stars Laurie Metcalf, Nathan Lane and Christopher Abbott. This marks the fourth time that the play has won best revival, with Rudin also serving as lead producer on the winning 2012 production.

Because Rudin was not in attendance at the 79th ceremony of Broadway’s biggest night, Lane accepted the award on behalf of production — and viewers were quick to call out the fact that Rudin’s name was not mentioned on stage even once, despite the play winning the most out of any individual production with six Tonys.

“So they won’t have scott rudin on the tony stage or even mentioned because they know it’s wrong but will let him back on broadway right right,” one person wrote on X.

“You know your producer is a bad person when it would be terrible PR for him to appear in public accepting an award/even get mentioned,” another person wrote in part.

Tony-nominated actor Amber Iman wrote on her Instagram Story: “If there’s a conscious, scripted effort not to say someone’s name on stage… And they don’t attend…[because] they know they can’t… Maybe they shouldn’t.”

One person wrote on X, “I am admittedly extremely upset about how well Death of a Salesman is doing. Why are we supporting a show with Scott Rudin as a producer.”

“We’re just ignoring the Scott Rudin-sized elephant in the room,” one person said, while another added: “ew death of a salesmen win. Scott Rudin shouldn’t be allowed back producing after everything he did.”

Rudin — an EGOT winner whose film and theater credits include West Side Story, The Social Network, Lady Bird, No Country for Old Men and The Book of Mormon — was exiled from Broadway and Hollywood simultaneously after a bombshell report by The Hollywood Reporter in 2021 detailed multiple claims from former employees who accused him of bullying, verbal abuse and throwing objects at his staff.

He allegedly smashed an Apple computer monitor an assistant’s hand for failing to book him a seat on a sold-out flight, and threw objects including a glass bowl and a baked potato at his employees. In the same report, multiple women accused him of sexism throughout his decades-long career in entertainment.

“Everyone just knows he’s an absolute monster,” a former worker said in the report.

Rudin issued an apology in a public statement shortly after and announced that he would step back from actively producing, saying at the time: “Much has been written about my history of troubling interactions with colleagues, and I am profoundly sorry for the pain my behavior caused to individuals, directly and indirectly.”

After a few years out of the public eye, Rudin launched a career comeback last year by producing Little Bear Ridge Road in the fall. He announced his return with a New York Times interview in March 2025, in which he claimed he has “a lot more self-control” now.

“A lot of what was said was true. Some of what was said wasn’t true. But I didn’t feel there was any point in responding to all of it because what’s the point of parsing bad behavior? It was bad behavior. I own it,” he told the publication.

Metcalf, who won Sunday for her supporting turn in Death of a Salesman, defended Rudin in a statement earlier this year after working with him on both of his comeback productions.

“He talked about his therapy; he apologized; he owned what he said; he reflected on it,” she told The New Yorker in April. “He was in the process of rehabilitation. So I just think that, unless we think there is no possibility of real rehabilitation, then we shouldn’t ask people to try and do it.”