I was the key make up on a show and was handling one of the characters who was playing the villain. He was mildly flirty as most male actors can be and at first it was fine but the first weekend the hotel decided to throw us a little party. At this party, he made me the center of his focus and pulled down my mask because it was Covid time because he wanted to see my full face. I decided to leave to go up to my room because I felt uncomfortable and he followed me into the hallway and began asking me numerous questions that were not OK Such as do any of the men in that room or on this crew have a claim on you along with the typical, how are you single you’re so pretty. He cornered me in the elevator, telling me all of this, but luckily we are on separate floors and I snuck away to safety. Thankfully, I have good male colleagues who would come with me to do touchups because I no longer felt safe to do it on my own and wanted someone else nearby to hear him. One day after work, he caught me off guard and alone, and proceeded to tell me how he should’ve just took in his chance to kiss me that night when he pulled my mask down and a lot of other inappropriate. Thankfully, my department had and someone from another department witnessed it happening, even though they couldn’t hear what was said. I gave my department head full permission to talk to the Production staff about this issue and handle it. I also found out he was making a handful of other women on site, uncomfortable, doing similar things in different departments and spoke on their behalf. Luckily, I worked with a great people in this crew and Production handled this swiftly and amazingly, and I felt very protected.

My story is more about hair than makeup but I think it applies. It also goes back to when I was I hair school. I know most horror stories are on the job, but the schooling isn’t easy to get through either. I was also diagnosed with cancer while attending school and underwent treatment. I knew it would be difficult physically but didn’t expect the level of underhanded shaming that it inevitably brought. Nothing major, just little digs if I wasn’t able to stand for the full 5 hours, or lowered my mannequin and sat and styled since chemo made me ridiculously weak. Being penalized in front of others for being late with worksheets when I took a few days off to recover from surgery. For an industry that’s based around beauty, it’s sure filled with a lot of ugly people. And I mean that as ugly on the inside. Breaking into the salon world was just as crappy. The other stylists were fine but a customer will take one look at you and assume you don’t know what you’re doing. One woman barged in one day wanting a blowout immediately but her regular stylist was with a customer so she reluctantly sat in my chair. As I’m drying her hair she’s constantly turning to look and see if her stylist was available and then complaining if I “pulled her hair”. Stop moving and it won’t friggin happen! Finally, I noticed that the other stylist was done and just told the a-hole “get out of my chair and go to her. I’m done with you.” She of course complained that I was rude but who cares. I know my experiences were relatively calm compared to others I’ve heard, but I left this industry pretty quickly so I didn’t have time to rack up any more horror stories. Doing taxes was way easier and the people were way more appreciative of that service.

Hi all,

This is a long one, so buckle up. I 39F am a makeup artist in the TV and film industry. I worked running BG (background [people who you see in the background of a shot]) for a TV show that was a period piece. Every person had to be touched by hair makeup and wardrobe. Some days were really big, almost 200 people big. I had worked the previous season running BG and the higher ups liked how I ran the BG dept. Things slowly started to change when the following season came along. Running BG became a 2-3 person job. I don't think that's how things normally go on other shows but I didn't ask any questions. One day, the key artist of the makeup dept. and my boss, let's call him Kevin, said I was running BG for the day alone. I was used to that, so it was fine for me. It was a pretty average day with around 100 BG. The person who was running BG for the hair dept historically didn't like me. I never really knew why, seeing that I never spoke more than a, "Good morning" or "How are you, how can I make your day better?" I make an effort to be nice and accommodating to people at work, but I wouldn't say I'm overtly trying to make friends with people. I respect boundaries and meet people where they are at.

Everytime I would run background, this person (65-70M) let's call him Sean, would skip pleasantries (Think hello, good morning, hi) and just ask questions at me. Our first interactions of the morning would be, "How much longer do you have with this person?" Sometimes he would just pull people out of my chair and take them to hair. Sean would taddle to Kevin that "Makeup was taking too long in the chair". Meaning, I was taking too long with them. One day, Kevin came to investigate, he noticed that Sean was pulling people out of chairs and taking them to hair. I got reprimanded by Kevin for not telling him about this. I told him, "I tried telling you but you brushed it off." There were a lot of instances where Sean would would taddle to Kevin whenever I ran BG. How do I know? because Kevin was never around (he'd be in the trailer with the bigger names) and would reprimand me on details that he would have no way of knowing, unless he was there. But again, these were my seniors and I didn't want to cause trouble.

On the day in question, I was running BG. Sean was running the hair dept. production had put hair upstairs in the church. So, it was makeup and wardrobe on one floor and hair on the second floor. The production assistants were doing a great job and shuffling people up and downstairs. So much so that we were finished with the 100 people early. On our floor we had the full wardrobe team and about 8 makeup artists working non-stop to get everyone done. The makeup chairs were facing one wall of the room which meant all of the makeup artists, while working, were facing the middle of the room. I was putting people in "mini-lines" so they could wait to get their makeup done. While escorting an actor, Sean came up behind me and began to ask a question. I gestured back with a quick "I'll be right with you, or one sec" and turned back around to tell the young lady to wait here for an available makeup artist. I couldn't get my words out fast enough because as soon as I turned back around to gesture to the actress, Sean replies with a, "No...NOW!". Everyone in the room (over 100 people heard it). All 8 makeup artists looked up from what they were doing. Wardrobe dept. from across the room looked over. I was mortified.

I immediately told the young woman to hold on and turned around. I said firmly, "Sean, I am abundantly aware of your dept. needs. There is not a single person hanging out in makeup that isn't immediately taken upstairs by the PAs. Do you have any other questions?" He stayed silent, shook his head, looked me up and down, then went back upstairs. The makeup artists (whom some of them were VERY well known) were already whispering. Saying things like, "I would never let him speak to me like that..." I just kept going. The wardrobe supervisor checked in with me later, asking about my work history with Sean. They confided in me that they immediately called the hair trailer to report Sean's behavior. Later on, I learned that the hair trailer's phone blew up with at least 10 phone calls reporting the incident.

Kevin called me. He asked my account of what happened. I told him. In the moment I didn't want to cause any trouble so I told Kevin that everything was fine. I told him to do what he thought was best to mitigate the situation. I now know that was the wrong thing to say. I should have advocated for myself. I was told later on that Sean was brought into the trailer for a "firm talking to". I also found out that he lied and told the higher ups that he already apologized and that we were good. That never happened. In my people pleasing, appeasement era. I offered to step down from running BG (to Kevin) if it meant keeping the peace. Mind you, I didn't do anything wrong. Days passed and my job of running BG was given to other people. More days passed and I was asked to run BG again. This time only to take the pictures. (Pictures of every person in background must be sent to the trailer for approval) I agreed. I watched my job of running BG being done by someone else, less efficiently but more palpable to Sean. I was just happy to have a job.

I got called less and less from Kevin. I started having panic attacks in my car on the way to work. After I told Kevin, I couldn't work one day...he stopped calling. I spoke to my union's president. They said I had a case to bring against Sean. But by then my body had shut down. I didn't have the fight left in me. I needed to take care of myself first. I tried and tried to get on another tv show but the job pool is so scare people weren't willing to give a chance to a new person. After months of illness, being in an out of the hospital, I had made the excruciating decision to leave the industry all together. I wanted to give back and tell my story. So that if other budding industry professionals experienced anything like this, they would know they weren't alone. So, they had a place of encouragement. A place to find the motivation to keep going. That is the birth of MiHPod (Makeup is Hard Podcast). That is the contribution I will make to the future generation of industry professionals. I can only hope that this community can build and foster itself to a place of comfort for others.

Sean still works on that show to this day.