Under oath, Elizabeth Taylor was caught up in a web of inaccuracies about her time working at FilmOn; Celebrity lawyer Bloom warned to stop coaching testimony with facial ticks

Being grilled by Ellyn Garofolo, who is defending the companies named in Lisa Bloom’s case against Alki David, FilmOn and other companies, Elizabeth Taylor turned out to be not so smooth–she’s no National Velvet. Asked repeatedly if there were any sexual advances by David, she could not say there were. This was in direct contradiction to her sworn testimony in the initial complaint, which had at its core an accusation that she was fired for rebuffing the boss’s sexual advances.

It’s not the only inconsistency in Taylor’s testimony. Everything from when she started and stopped her brief four-and-a-half month employment at FilmOn, to the fact that she called herself “a top performer” on the FilmOn sales team despite admitting on the stand that she had never made her sales quota, seemed to be upended when she had to face up to questioning.

Alki David, who is representing himself alongside Garofolo and was later sanctioned for speaking out of turn by the judge, pointed out several times that plaintiff’s attorney Lisa Bloom was attempting to coach Taylor while she was on the stand through an elaborate system of blinks, winks and ticks that would make any Major League Baseball catcher proud. Judge Liu repeatedly warned Bloom to stop the blatant violations.

As the day wore on, it became increasingly clear that Taylor was hedging he answers because she realized the truth would contradict the story she and Bloom’s team had been selling. Garofolo, mercifully, reminded Taylor repeatedly that she was in danger of perjuring herself. Today Garofolo’s questioning continues, before Alki David takes his turn at her. In an unusual arrangement Judge Liu asked David to submit his questions for Taylor in advance. At the end of the afternoon, Judge Liu said he had approved all of David’s questions for Taylor in advance.

David also argued that it should be fair to bring up the fact that Gloria Allred, the mother of Lisa Bloom who is herself under investigation by two state bars, rejected Elizabeth Taylor as a client, previous to her signing with the Bloom Firm. Though any mention of her mother seems to send Bloom into manic fits, David explained that he would lay the foundation for why this should be included. Bloom and her team then spent half an hour pushing to remove the word celebrity” from being attached to Allred’s name in a text from Elizabeth Taylor that was already entered into evidence.

Bloom is under intense heat after having botched an attempt to sue Rep. Tony Cardenas in a similar case that many have said was pure extortion. The Bloom Firm withdrew for ethical violations, as reported in the Los Angeles Times. Bloom also still has not found a way out from under the cloud of having aligned herself with rapist Harvey Weinstein at the dawn of the #MeToo movement.