This is precisely why celebrities shouldn't get free stuff, because then
they start expecting it. Liz Hurley is under fire for acting cheap on a couple of different occasions. First, Liz and her husband Arun Nayer stiffed the church where they were married. The couple had promised to buy the church a set of kneelers as payment. That was considered tacky enough, as the standard donation is $2000. And it's customary to give more based on your wealth. She and Arun still haven't ponied up and actually supplied the kneelers. Turns out there's more.
Several UK papers are reporting that Liz Hurley and Arun Nayer have been accused of paying their maid as little as $2.50 an hour. At times she was forced to work from 7:30 in the morning all the way until 3 in the morning the next day.
Violet d'Souza, 31, says she worked several days a week at the Chelsea house, where she also lived. Her chores included cleaning, cooking and babysitting from 7.30am until, on occasions, 3am the next day.
According to the Daily Mirror, the couple paid her 8,000 rupees a week - around £100. The equivalent hourly rate would be between £1.40 and £1.60, and sometimes as little as £1.20 if she worked long hours. The legal minimum wage is £5.52. Hurley, 42, is said to be worth £13 million from acting and modeling contracts while Mr Nayar, 43, comes from a wealthy Indian textiles family.
The Daily Mirror says that d'Souza withdrew her claims after she was given a five-figure settlement. She was scheduled to have a hearing in front of the employment tribunal tomorrow. Ms. d'Souza was fired without warning by the couple, supposedly after getting into an argument with them. Violet was forced to go to her aunt's home, where she learned that she was being paid illegal wages. She was able to get an Oxford-educated lawyer to represent her for free from the Citizens Advice Bureau, so it sounds like she had a legitimate case. If it is, this is quite an embarrassing thing to surface about you, especially given the amount of money Liz and Arun are worth.
