Clash in the castle: Medieval Times dinner theater insiders allege animal cruelty, sexual harassment
For 43 years, Medieval Times Dinner & Tournament performers across North America have captivated audiences as jousting knights and bejeweled ladies on horseback.
But now the company’s own castle is under siege as former employees allege in lawsuits that the company shrouds a culture of animal cruelty, sexual harassment, discrimination, bullying and retaliation for reporting abuse.
At the shows, guests dine on what’s billed as a medieval-style feast, as they cheer on armor-clad knights, who participate in a tournament on horseback and battle with swords.
The chain established its first location in Kissimmee, Florida, near Orlando, in 1983. The company now employs more than 2,000 at 10 "castles" in the United States and Canada.
The theater’s show champions the "chivalry" of their knights. But some who work alongside those performers say the culture is biased against female cast members.
A former "queen" of the castle is now suing the company, alleging a workplace environment "rooted in gender discrimination and sexual harassment."
Another whistleblower alleged that she was fired for voicing concerns about animal cruelty.
A civil lawsuit was filed in June by a former cast member of the Buena Park, California, castle. She alleges a hostile work environment with widespread sexual harassment.
Kaitlyn Farrell resigned in February 2024 because of "intolerable" conditions after joining the company as a "queen" five years earlier, according to the lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of California, in Orange County.
The "two-tiered workplace culture" treats female cast members as "a lesser class of employee," she said in the lawsuit.
Farrell alleges that unwanted sexual advances toward female employees are "normalized" and "gender-based misconduct" and that complaints are "dismissed" with "indifference."
While working at Medieval Times, she was asked to be a witness in a workplace harassment investigation for another employee.
That made her the "target of open retaliation by the very employee she reported on," her lawsuit alleges.
Management stood by and did nothing, she said.
On another occasion, according to the lawsuit, a manager ordered someone to "remove stitching" from her costumes, what she calls a "calculated sabotage" that was "maliciously intended to cause wardrobe malfunctions in front of live audiences."
After employees unionized at the Buena Park location, and she participated in a strike in February 2023, Farrell said she became the "primary target of an extreme, sexualized cyberbullying and doxxing campaign."
Anonymous social media accounts with "obvious indications" of employee or management involvement posted content such as her dating history, sexually derogatory captions and photoshopped images with her face "on the bodies of semi-nude cartoon characters depicted in simulated sexual positions," the lawsuit alleges.
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The harassment escalated to physical stalking when Medieval Times employees "traveled to Ms. Farrell's secondary workplace" at another theme park "to physically intimidate her while she was working" to entertain guests, the lawsuit alleges.
When she made formal complaints about the behavior, an attorney for Medieval Times issued a written letter dismissing the cyberbullying and stalking as "weird allegations."
"We look forward to proving these allegations in court," Farrell’s attorney, Charles Ludd Jr., told Fox News Digital.
Medieval Times did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. But former employee Bill Elliot calls Farrell’s allegations "false claims."
Elliot worked at the same Medieval Times location as a knight until leaving after 12 1/2 years in 2015. He had no complaints with the company, he told Fox News Digital in a text message.
"The company took care of us," he said. "We had decent pay; full-time hours with overtime … full medical, dental and vision insurance; and 401K."
He believes that people making claims against the company are part of "the-rich-need-to-pay-their-fair-share group" and want to cash in, he said.
"They have no responsibility in running a company that employs thousands of people and no risk in doing it, but believe they deserve more of the profit," he said.
"If it was such a toxic environment and company, they could have immediately removed themselves, but didn't," he said.
It was common for female cast members to seek "attention from the knights and [they] did everything to try and get that attention," Elliot said.
"Now, because those females didn't get their way or what they wanted, they started making false claims and screaming ‘toxic masculinity’ or any other buzzwords to get attention."
Farrell’s lawsuit isn’t the first to make concerning claims against the dinner theater company.
In her 2019 lawsuit, Bethany Regan tells about how she joined the Buena Park castle in 2013. During her employment, she was treated "less favorably" than male cast members, according to court documents.
When she became increasingly concerned about the welfare of the equine performers, she made reports to management, the lawsuit alleges.
The head trainer had a "volatile temper" and would whip horses "unnecessarily" until they had "large welts" over their body, according to the lawsuit.
Some horses were trained in ways that made them bleed from their mouths and in various places on their bodies, she alleged. Horses were "overworked" and sometimes weren’t allowed to rest until they were dehydrated, according to her complaint.
One horse died as a result, she alleged.
Regan had been warned that the head horse trainer was a close friend of the owner of the company and that any complaints could result in "retaliation." She brought up her concerns anyway.
She also reported "dangerous and unsafe working conditions" for female cast members.
After she made formal complaints, the company suspended her for "starting rumors," her lawsuit alleges. Later, her job was terminated.
The lawsuit was settled in 2020. The conditions of the settlement were not made public.
Regan’s attorney did not respond to a request from Fox News Digital for comment.
Yvonne Barteau was principal trainer and director of entertainment operations for six years at Arabian Nights Dinner Attraction. Minutes away from a Florida Medieval Times castle, the horse-themed dinner theater operated from 1988 until 2014.
Barteau now runs a horse rescue in Florida called Horses without Humans. She founded the operation after making a documentary about theater horses in the United States.
Over the years, she worked with many Medieval Times performers as they moved between dinner theater jobs in the Orlando, Florida, area, she told Fox News Digital.
It was common for young performers to get "way too into their role, like they're really medieval warriors," Barteau said. "I think they got too into the identity."
That led to men treating women in a "callous" way, she said, "and I think it was not frowned upon the way that it should be. So yeah, certainly back then, I saw it."
Dinner theater jobs "seemed to attract people like that. And then sometimes the upper management didn't shut it down like they should have," she said.
She met "good people" at Medieval Times. She met others that were not so good, she said.
And there’s never an excuse for abusing a horse, she said.
"Anybody that works with horses, or works with something that has no voice of its own—children, horses, any animal—you have to be the voice," she said.
But "in today’s culture," she said, people with little experience with horses assume that any performance with a horse should be considered cruel.
And that’s simply wrong, she said.
"They haven't seen how some horses really do light up, and they do love to be out there performing," she said. "They love the attention."
She has performed for years with a stallion named Papi.
"He's an absolute theater horse—he's a Brad Pitt.
"People see that horse, and they remember him, and it makes them love horses. And why wouldn't we want that, you know, as horse lovers? Why would we want somebody else to fall in love with horses?"