Roxy Jacenko in bitter stoush with ex-staffer
PR QUEEN Roxy Jacenko is embroiled in a bitter workplace dispute with a lookalike employee who holidayed with Jacenko and even helped mind her children while Jacenko’s husband was in jail.
Confidential
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PR QUEEN Roxy Jacenko is embroiled in a bitter workplace dispute with a lookalike employee who holidayed with Jacenko and even helped mind her children while Jacenko’s husband was in jail.
In an email seen by The Daily Telegraph, the Sweaty Betty founder accuses 22-year-old Gemma Oldfield — the niece of I’m a Celebrity reality TV stars Lisa and David Oldfield — of fabricating mental health problems to leave her job ahead of an agreed date.
Jacenko also accused Ms Oldfield of leaving early to look after her cousins “while their parents appeared on a reality show”.
This is despite Ms Oldfield supplying a doctor’s letter stating that she had been suffering from anxiety for “several months”.
“You may wish to continue lying — loose (sic) your four friends who have stuck by you, have no reference for 2 years in the role — that’s totally fine by me. I don’t wish to entertain your lies any further !!!!!!!!” Jacenko wrote on February 27.
Ms Oldfield had been an employee at Jacenko’s Paddington PR agency for two years. She travelled to Hawaii with Jacenko in January last year while Jacenko’s husband Oliver Curtis was in prison.
Social media pictures show Ms Oldfield helping to look after Jacenko’s two young children.
Ms Oldfield resigned from the firm in late January, with her final day due to be February 16. On February 20, a Sweaty Betty employee emailed Oldfield asking her to repay slightly more than a day’s wages, claiming she was supposed to work on the afternoon of February 15 and also the following day.
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A week later Ms Oldfield was also told Sweaty Betty would “commence legal action” and she would now have to pay “all legal fees incurred” which would be added to her “debt”.
That night Ms Oldfield supplied Sweaty Betty with a signed medical certificate from a Bondi Junction doctor stating she had been suffering anxiety symptoms for several months.
The doctor wrote that Ms Oldfield had experienced a “severe stress reaction/ anxiety and panic attack” on February 15 and 16.
It prompted Jacenko’s furious reply, which argued Ms Oldfield’s social media profiles suggested her mental health was fine.
“(Your claims are) quite contrary to the correspondence you put in writing to your fellow colleagues as well as the Instagram stories and posts you shared during these ‘medical episodes’ which I have also retained — flying foxes, babysitting, visits to Mrs Sippy with a toddler — sticking up his finger, driving around town and posing with a Mercedes GLC.
And the sole care of two kids while their parents appeared on a reality show,” Jacenko told Ms Oldfied via the email.
Ms Oldfield declined to comment to The Daily Telegraph. But Jacenko revealed text messages sent to Oldfield on her final day. She said Ms Oldfied had left early to babysit her young cousins.
“Gemma, I am not good with you just upping and leaving. No explanation, nothing. What’s going on,” Jacenko texted. “It’s unprofessional. And it’s a p ... take.”
The stoush between the pair follows a 2013 an email titled: “What it’s really like to work for Roxy Jacenko” circulated. However, legal action prevented details of the email from being published.