Lost was a groundbreaking hit. Behind the scenes it was 'toxic' and 'poisonous'.

Lost was a series ahead of its time. 

It was September 2004 when it first graced our screens – a time when medical dramas ruled, teen dramas, too, and reality TV was becoming a ‘thing’. Lost was different from all of the above. It brought mystery to our lives each week, cliffhanger storylines and a huge, diverse cast.

But it wasn’t all hunky dory on the set.

Burn It Down is a new book that details the “toxic” and “poisonous” culture on the Hawaii set of the ABC-produced, JJ Abrahams-directed series has us gobsmacked, and thinking twice about the show that had us hooked, and totally confused at the same time. 

Watch: The other signs of workplace bullying beyond its definition. Story continues after video. 

Here’s you need to know.

Lost racism claims.

Screenwriters Monica Owusu-Breen and Alison Schapker recalled how showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Crus created a “cruel” culture on the show’s Hawaii set. 

"I can only describe it as hazing. It was very much middle school and relentlessly cruel. And I've never heard that much racist commentary in one room in my career," Owusu-Breen recalled. "Everyone was real nice to us for the first few days. And then they wanted us dead.” 

She also claimed it wasn’t just people of colour off-camera who were the target of racism, saying, “There was so much s**t, so much racist s**t”.

“All I wanted to do was write some really cool episodes of a cool show. That was an impossibility on that staff,” Owusu-Breen said. “There was no way to navigate that situation. Part of it was they really didn’t like their characters of colour.”

Case in point, Harold Perrineau. 

Already a well-known actor, Perrineau was one of five leads in the series – yet his salary didn’t reflect it. 

“It became pretty clear that I was 'the Black guy'. Daniel [Dae Kim] was 'the Asian guy'. And then you had Jack and Kate and Sawyer,” the latter three being white and considered the “hero characters”.  

“It’s not that they didn’t write stories for Sayid [an Iraqi character] or Sun and Jin [Korean characters],” the source added. But, they recalled comments like: “Nobody cares about these other characters. Just give them a few scenes on another beach.”

He was later told that “audiences follow stories” with white lead characters because they are “relatable”. 

When Perrineau confronted Cuse during contract negotiations, he asked for better pay and equal “depth” as the show’s white characters and was fired. “I was f**ked up about it. I was like, ‘Oh, I just got fired, I think,’” Perrineau recalled.

“Me mentioning the colour of my skin – that just sent everybody off the rails. We came up with something, but it took weeks, because I was like, ‘I didn’t say anything wrong',” he said in Burn It Down. “Nobody did anything wrong. But people so loved the show. They couldn’t hear one thing against it.”

As the publication so perfectly put it, “Lindelof and Cuse had the power to hire and fire.” When Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s character, Mr. Eko, is killed off, Owusu-Breen said Crus wanted his death scene to go something like this: “Carlton said something to the effect of, ‘I want to hang him from the highest tree. God, if we could only cut his d**k off and shove it down his throat.’”

Both Owusu-Breen and her writing partner Schapker were eventually fired.

Burn It Down also detailed how the only Asian writer on set was called “The Korean” and other suggested a “White Only sign” be hung on the bathroom doors so cleaning staff couldn’t use them.

Lost sexual harassment claims.

Another employee, Gretchen, called the workplace “vindictive”.

A source told author Maureen Ryan how a woman carrying an HR binder was asked, "Why don't you take off your top and tell us about it?" when she entered the writers' room.

In 2009, Chelsea Stone, an ABC employee of 10 years filed a suit against Henry Ian Cusick, who played Desmond, accusing him of sexual harassment. 

According to The Independent, Stone claimed Cusick moaned as he fondled her in October 2007, before kissing her on the lips. She also accused him of touching her buttocks and breasts, all without her consent. When she reported the incident to a supervisor, she was told to avoid him and was fired 12 days later. 

The pair settled out of court.

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Then of course there was the series “hero” Matthew Fox, who played Jack. In 2011, a year after wrapping the series, Fox was accused of assaulting a female bus driver in Cleveland, Ohio. Police did not charge Fox, but the woman filed a civil suit claiming that Fox repeatedly punched her after she refused to drive him back to his downtown hotel at 1:20am.

Fox filed a countersuit for defamation and the case was dismissed with prejudice after the woman's attorney withdrew her claim, saying she could not afford to defend the counterclaim.

Throughout, Fox maintained he was innocent.  

Feature Image: Bad Robot Productions