Sean Penn lashed out at employees of his nonprofit who help administer COVID-19 vaccines in Los Angeles after two of them complained online about working conditions.
The Oscar-winning actor wrote a scathing 2,200-word email to staff on Friday, accusing the unnamed couple of “obscene criticisms” and telling them to stop, The Los Angeles Times reported.
“For whoever wrote this one, understand that there is a vitriol in every cell of my body for the way your actions reflect so detrimentally on your brothers and sisters in arms,” Penn wrote in the letter leaked to the Times. .
The message came after two people who said they worked for Penn’s organization, Community Organized Relief Effort, commented on a Jan. 28 New York Times story describing a day at the massive vaccination site at Dodger Stadium.
A self-proclaimed “CORE staff” member said workers were overworked after LA Mayor Eric Garcetti converted the stadium from a virus testing site to a vaccination center.
The executives work 18-hour days, six days a week, “without the ability to take breaks,” the person wrote.
The other anonymous writer complained that, according to the article, site employees were given “Krispy Kreme for breakfast and Subway for lunch.”
“We don’t usually get breakfast, just coffee,” the person wrote, adding that the lunch was “NO” Subway, but “the same old lettuce every day. It’s a free lunch for staff / volunteers, so I’m not complaining, but anyway … not Subway. “
In his furious email, Penn, 60, described his “grave concern” over the comments, which he expressed as a “broad betrayal of all,” reported the LA Times.
He said the “shameful submissions” were “highly visible,” even though they are part of at least 150 reader responses to the NY Times article.
Penn said CORE – which he co-founded after the 2010 Haiti earthquake – has “strong grievance mechanisms and endless other internal avenues for productive criticism” from executives.
Anyone “prone to a culture of complaint” and “broadly supported cyber-whining” should just stop, he added.
“It’s called quitting,” Penn wrote. “Stop for CORE. Stop for your colleagues who don’t want to stop. Stop for your fellow humans who deeply recognize that this is a moment in time. A moment of service that we must all embody, sometimes to the point of collapse. “