Apple sued over ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’
Kristi Marie Hoffman, a costume designer who worked on Martin Scorsese‘s Killers of the Flower Moon, filed a lawsuit against Apple on May 22nd.
Hoffman, who is Native American, has alleged that she was deliberately removed from consideration during awards season because of a complaint she lodged with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding racial discrimination on set. The case was settled in December 2022.
As a result of the settlement, the new lawsuit brought forward by Hoffman alleges that Apple deliberately diminished her contribution to the movie, claiming they are “attempting to erase her contribtions” to Killers of the Flower Moon.
Hoffman says she was responsible for “most of the research and costume design for the film”, especially the Osage characters in the movie. Furthermore, Hoffman also took the credit for the jacket worn by Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Ernest Burkhart, which she says has “garnered much praise for its authenticity and originality”.
She has also listed costume designer Jacqueline West and the Costume Designers Guild in the suit. The legal document claims both Hoffman and West were originally listed in the Costume Designers Guild Award nominations, before she was removed, which she claims was due to the discrimination settlement.
According to the lawsuit, the Costume Designers Guild said the removal was “improper” once the issue was raised by Hoffman.
The lawsuit states: “Since her EEOC Complaint, Hoffman has been targeted through elimination efforts by Defendants for her contributions to the film by Defendants’ promotion of West and O ‘Keefe for her efforts.”
Hoffman, who has worked in the industry for 20 years, says she “poured her heart” into the Scorsese production because it was about a subject matter that “she could relate to as a Native herself”.
The filing claims Apple “teamed up with West and CDG” during the promotion of the film and costume design, but, “despite Hoffman being the primary ACD and completing most of the research and costume design for the film, the Defendants not only specifically excluded her involvement in its promotion but also completely ignored her work and instead represented to the public at large that the costume design work, her work, was the product of West and a consultant on the film, Julie O’Keefe.”
Apple is yet to respond to the lawsuit brought forward by Hoffman.
In a four-and-a-half-star review of Killers of the Flower Moon, Far Out wrote: “As expected of Scorsese, every shot is perfectly crafted and brings the nature of the true-crime narrative to new cinematic heights. At three and a half hours long, Killers of the Flower Moon is utterly captivating, sensitive in its approach and an essential work in chronicling the power that the United States would eventually become.”
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