Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Randall Scandal’ on Hulu, a Dishy Dive into Movie Producer and ‘Vanderpump Rules’ Star Randall Emmett’s Misdeeds (2024)

The Randall Scandal: Love, Loathing and Vanderpump (now on Hulu) is a documentary expose about Randall Emmett, a movie producer with a few tentative claims to fame: One, he used to be Mark Wahlberg’s personal assistant, and the Entourage character Turtle is modeled after him. Two, he appeared in reality show Vanderpump Rules for a while, after he started dating series regular Lala Kent. Three, if you pay attention to movie credits, you may have noticed he’s produced dozens of movies, most of them el-cheapo direct-to-video action/crime thrillers boasting cameos from veteran actors (Bruce Willis being his most frequent rent-a-star), although he also helped finance and produce Martin Scorsese films Silence and The Irishman. And four is this documentary, which stems from a June, 2022 Los Angeles Times investigation into a massive pile of lawsuits and allegations of abusive behavior and sexual misconduct against Emmett and/or his production company; produced by the Times and ABC News, the doc debuts just as the Vanderpump Rules Season 10 reunion specials are set to air, so it’s likely to draw some viewers. And it promises to be pretty juicy – so the question here is whether it’s worth 90 minutes of your time.

THE RANDALL SCANDAL: LOVE, LOATHING AND VANDERPUMP: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Randall Scandal begins like so many other documentaries, with a montage of stuff teasing the juiciest stuff to come: “So many red flags,” says one woman. “Totally naked,” says another. “Unless you’ve been through it, you can’t comprehend it,” a man says. There’s mention of a bag of cocaine, the n-word, 50 Cent, Bruce Willis. And one commentator points out that if Randall Emmett hadn’t been a reality-TV character thirsty for money and exposure, he might not be under as much scrutiny as he is now. And then we get to the meat of it when we meet Meg James and Amy Kaufman, two L.A. Times reporters who anchor this doc with their timelines and commentary. They got a tip about a Hollywood production house that wasn’t paying its bills. They pulled on the thread and wound up, so to speak, unraveling the sweater worn by Randall Emmett, leaving him exposed, although, as one former female assistant to Emmett alleges, he was already pretty good at exposing himself.

“We really wanted to illuminate this dark corner in Hollywood,” James says. It’s where some shady sh*t was going on – more than 30 lawsuits, abuse allegations from former employees, a list of investors waiting impatiently to get their loans paid back. But first, some background on Emmett: He grew up in Florida, and is described as a big personality, a restlessly creative type who went to a performing arts school and always had a video camera on his shoulder, rolling on whatever he and his pals had going on. His distant cousin is Jerry Bruckheimer, and that was his in for an internship in Hollywood; that spun into the gig as Wahlberg’s toadie. That wasn’t his dream, though – he wanted to make movies, and used his grit and determination to climb the ladder and meet people, one of whom was George Furla, a savvy former stock trader with deep pockets. They formed Emmett/Furla Productions, and began making low-budget movies that guaranteed a return on investment based purely on who was on the poster/DVD cover (the documentary doesn’t get into it, but these films are often pre-sold to foreign markets before they’re even made, to slake audiences’ thirst for big-name American actors). That meant landing a name, so Emmett offered aging action stars large chunks of those small budgets for minimal work: Willis earned $2 million for one day of filming. Robert De Niro got $11 million for two weeks’ work. Sylvester Stallone got $8 million for a few days. Etc. Someone dubbed these films “geezer teasers,” because they’d tout their star, but in reality, the “headliner” would have minimal screen time.

Emmett was making a name for himself, and fattening his bank account. The movies sucked ass, being boring and borderline unwatchable – I would know; I’ve seen a bunch – but they made money, and that’s all that mattered. He soon had enough clout to back Scorsese for a passion project (Silence) that other producers balked on. Emmett was peaking. This is when we meet Brett Pearson, a former personal assistant to Emmett whose first task upon being hired was to secure an IV and some fresh clothes for the producer after he’d spent a weekend partying his tail off at Coachella. Pearson is the first of a handful of people in the documentary who worked for Emmett and had horror stories to tell – stories about Emmett verbally abusing them, making demands of them at all hours, forcing them to make large purchases for him out of pocket, showing them his twig and berries, stuff like that. He was growing into the stereotype of the sleazy Hollywood producer whose ego barely fit into his Rolls Royce or his mansion or behind the velvet ropes at swanky clubs where you go to gamble and do drugs and chase women.

Then, famously, he began dating Vanderpump star Lala Kent, real name Lauren Burningham. Reality-TV junkies know what happened there – Emmett offered to buy her a Range Rover after she had sex with him for the first time. Kent’s mother, Lisa, and brother, Easton, testify that Emmett was very supportive when Kent’s father suffered a stroke and passed away, but that’s pretty much the last happy anecdote we’ll hear about him in this doc. In 2019, it came to light that Emmett owed his former moviemaking business partner 50 Cent $1 million, and 50 hectored him on social media until he paid up. Then more of Emmett’s shady business dealings were made public. He was being sued over here and squeezed over there; meanwhile, Vanderpump and his Instagram showed him indulging in an extravagant lifestyle. Then he allegedly harangued Willis on set, not realizing the actor was not well (Willis would reveal soon thereafter that he was retiring due to a dementia diagnosis). There was lots of evidence that he was cheating on Lala, even though she’d just given birth to their daughter. Bottom line: Emmett doesn’t seem like a very nice guy!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Well, the Harvey Weinstein doc Untouchable is also on Hulu, although in the bigger picture, Emmett seems like a flake of dandruff fluttering off Weinstein’s shoulder. Otherwise, ABC has released other documentaries about reality-TV scandals on Hulu, including The Housewife and the Hustler (spinning off The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and The Housewife and the Shah Shocker (from The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City).

Performance Worth Watching: Emmett’s former personal assistant Martin G’Blae is the most sympathetic person among many sympathetic people who removed themselves from Emmett’s orbit. After sharing stories about how Emmett threw around racist epithets, G’Blae, visibly upset, gets up and walks off the documentary set.

Memorable Dialogue: Lala’s brother Easton Burningham minces no words: “I hate him. I hate Randall Emmett.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Two years ago, New York Magazine dubbed Emmett “king of the geezer teasers,” and quite amusingly quoted one of his former associates as being surprised Emmett hadn’t been offed by the Russian mob yet. A year after that, James and Kaufman published their L.A. Times piece, a thoroughly researched expose that paints a more disturbing picture of Emmett. And now, The Randall Scandal builds upon that expose, giving its subject a higher-profile drubbing – but it undermines the journalism a bit by playing to reality-TV fans with a dishy, gossipy tone.

The documentary trots out reality-TV podcasters as quasi-“expert” commentators, and ropes in Kent’s family members in her stead (she’s seen only in video footage from her spots on said podcasters’ shows), and glosses over the factual nitty-gritty that James and Kaufman uncovered. If you want to know more about the bevy of lawsuits Emmett faces, you’ll have to go back and read that 2022 story, which is a far more thorough and convincing account of the filmmaker’s misdeeds (and James and Kaufman reveal that their story resulted in other people from Emmett’s sphere contacting them with further stories of mistreatment and harassment, which the reporters say they’re currently vetting). Kent and Emmett’s breakup in the wake of his infidelity was highly publicized, but without her direct contribution, any insider info on what happened between them is left vague; cue a clip from a Vanderpump episode where she says what was in the L.A. Times piece was bad, but what wasn’t in it is even worse.

The makers of The Randall Scandal apparently believe that hard-hitting investigative fodder doesn’t play well to Vanderpump diehards. But it does its diligence by giving people like G’Blae a voice where they otherwise had none; they’re lower-level showbiz employees who had dreams of working in the industry, but ended up scarred by their experience. Putting such testimonials alongside podcasters delivering secondhand gossip in a cheery tone is jarring. Certainly, both angles on Emmett are necessary pieces of a pretty wide-ranging portrait of foul behavior. But if you want a more complete picture, cough up a buck and subscribe to the newspaper, because this doc functions more as a supplemental piece to James and Kaufman’s reporting than a standalone work.

Our Call: The Randall Scandal is uneven and incomplete; Emmett has yet to truly face public repercussions, and continues to make movies, having formed a second production company to sidestep the first one’s many financial woes. (Maybe Randall Scandal II is in the works?) But the doc gives us just enough of a glimpse into a sleazy part of Hollywood to reward our curiosity. STREAM IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.