Olsens must pay fashion ‘vics’
185 ‘slaving’ interns to share $100K
The Olsen Twins aren’t just two of America’s most beloved child stars — they’re also a pair of pint-sized slave drivers.
The 30-year-old former “Full House” actresses have agreed to pay out $100,000, plus an additional $41,950 in legal fees, to a group of 185 young interns who were worked like mules and never paid while toiling to produce the twins’ brand of “boho chic” clothing, according to a new filing in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The settlement will come to around $540 per intern — all of whom allegedly toiled up to 50 hours a week for months at a time at the behest of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who run a business empire worth an estimated $300 million.
The cash is enough only to buy one of the $320 T-shirts sold by the twins’ fashion house, The Row. The rest of the funds will go to the interns’ lawyers, if a judge approves the agreement.
Former design intern Shahista Lalani filed the class-action suit in 2015, claiming she was so overworked that she was once hospitalized for dehydration.
“It was like 100 degrees outside. I’d just be sweating to death. I probably carried like 50 pounds worth of trench coats,” the Canada native, who worked at The Row for five months in 2012, told The Post when she brought the case.
The suit said the interns should have been paid minimum wage plus overtime because they were doing the same work as their paid colleagues without receiving academic or vocational credit.
Lalani and the other interns say they spent their long hours inputting data, running errands, sewing, photocopying and other menial tasks.
She said she rarely got a break and was fielding e-mails from her boss, the head technical designer for the twin’s fashion house, The Row, until 10 p.m.
“You’re like an employee, except you’re not getting paid,” Lalani recalled. “They’re kind of mean to you. Other interns have cried. I’d see a lot of kids crying, doing coffee runs, photocopying stuff.”
The settlement deal was the result of “protracted, arm’s-length negotiations between the parties and their experienced counsel,” plaintiffs’ attorney LaDonna Lusher says in court papers.
“The parties have reached a proposed settlement which plaintiffs believe represents a significant recovery given the potential damages and substantial risks if the case proceeds to trial.”
The deal covers interns who worked at The Row since 2009.
An attorney for the twin’s holding company, Dualstar LLP, did not immediately return a request for comment. The deal allows the company to deny any wrongdoing.
The former child stars’ camp said it struck the deal to “avoid the uncertainties of litigation,” according to a recent court filing by their attorney.