Endeavor Content is under fire for hiring a former sushi salesman and unlicensed doctor Lucas Furst to administer COVID-19 tests to the cast and crew of Apple TV+’s Truth Be Told. According to Newsweek, the series’ stars, Octavia Spencer and Kate Hudson, were only told about Furst’s lack of credentials after he had been fired.
Endeavor Content hired Furst through his firm, Medical Placement Association, to secure health care practitioners on set. Furst’s company tested everyone on set for two months, sometimes daily. Furst was fired Nov. 17, with Endeavor not providing the press a reason for the firing. However, the newly-hired doctors for the Truth Be Told set found that an actor who was cleared for work the day before actually tested positive for COVID-19.
While Furst did graduate from the Xavier University School of Medicine, he has never had an active medical license, something he has admitted in a 2019 interview for a secretarial position, according to Newsweek. His business partner, Matty Beckerman, also confirmed Furst’s lack of a medical license to Zenger News. Neither Furst, nor Spencer or Hudson, have released statements at this time.
Meanwhile, Beckerman and his wife Cathy, an executive within the Medical Placement Association, assert that the company and Furst didn’t act inappropriately, with Cathy saying that because Furst was only swabbing the cast and crew, he was not practicing medicine. Matty Beckerman also claimed that a licensed doctor supervised Medical Placement Association’s COVID-19 testing on set. However, Newsweek reports that One Lab LLC claims that there was no other doctor listed on the batch of swabs Furst sent to them for testing.
On Truth Be Told, Spencer stars as Poppy Scoville-Parnell, the host of a true-crime podcast who endeavors to solve a real murder mystery.
