'SNL' in early 2000s could be hazardous environment for young female staffers

The young staffer said that when she interned on the 1999-2000 season before being hired full time, the cast member Horatio Sanz followed her into a bedroom at a party and asked to touch her breasts. Another former intern said that at a different party at about this time, a high-profile cast member asked her to sit on his lap and licked one of her cheeks. The young staffer said it would be difficult to imagine more than two women who "had a great experience or felt valued" while working at "Saturday Night Live.""It was an incredibly sexist environment," she said.Numerous people told Insider there was a feeling at "SNL" that young women were expendable.Scott Sassa, the president of NBC's West Coast division from 1999 to 2003, flew into New York for the live shows accompanied by a group of young women referred to around "SNL" offices as "Scott Sassa's Pussy Posse," according to Tony Daro, an "SNL" writer from 1998 to 2001. A former assistant who worked in Signorelli's film unit in the early 2000s said the producer asked her to babysit his children on more than one occasion, which was "really out of the job scope." Signorelli, who worked at the show from 1977 to 2013, didn't respond to a request for comment.A writing-and-research intern who worked at "SNL" in the early 2000s when she was 19 said female interns "were made to feel like you are here to just absorb the experience but not truly learn anything," adding: "You're here to get the coffee. So I think the whole thing is keep your mouth shut and do whatever you can to keep participating."The writing-and-research intern said that when a former cast member visited "SNL," he put his hands on her shoulders and got "way too close for comfort." She felt particularly worried because she had been told that interns weren't allowed to speak with celebrities and feared she'd be reprimanded for the actor's behavior.The writing-and-research intern remembers thinking that if she made a big deal out of the interaction, "I'm going to be the one that's asked to leave."Several people said they believed it would've been futile to report inappropriate behavior."The people who were there for a long time, they weren't going anywhere, and they held the keys to whether or not you could stay at the show," said one of the former production staffers who worked in the early 2000s. But these gatherings could be uncomfortable for young women.The young staffer said that when she was an intern during the 1999-2000 season, she attended an after-after-party at an "SNL" staffer's apartment. One former staffer said he remembered Sanz "making out" with an intern on at least one occasion, but he said he believed the interaction was consensual.Several people recalled that Sanz appointed himself the "SNL" party planner, handing out tickets to the cast, writers, and crew members as well as interns and pages. "You'd walk in there and get your dick sucked, there was usually some fucking going on, and there was liquor and couches everywhere."At about noon the next day, Morgan wrote, he got a call from his friend, who said Sanz was still at the party, sitting on a couch "with two girls." He'd never left.It was at one of these parties where the 17-year-old fan says Sanz sexually assaulted her. The fan often attended these parties as Sanz's guest and was never asked for identification before being admitted or served alcohol, she said.One former intern said she had no problem getting into several "SNL" after-parties and after-after parties, even though she was only 18 at the time. In her lawsuit, which also names NBC and "SNL" as defendants, the fan says that Sanz wasn't the only "SNL" cast member or NBC employee who preyed on girls and that the network and the show were complicit."I don't know how many people knew that Horatio was sexting me regularly," she told The Daily Beast.