Netflix exec fired from $1.1M job after revealing personal secret during company retreat
Being paid $1.1 million a year to work for Netflix sounds like a pretty cushy job, and with the company still reigning supreme among the big three of Netflix, Disney+, and Prime Video, the media giant looks like it has a pretty bright future.
Although share prices are currently down, Netflix celebrated a massive $45.2 billion in revenue in 2025 and an impressive year-over-year increase for the streaming service.
Unfortunately for Kevin Baillie, he won't get to bask in that success, with him now attempting to sue Netflix amid complaints he was let go over a revelation he made at a company retreat.
The former vice president and head of creative at Eyeline Studios says he was let go over comments he made, then being denied around a year's worth of severance pay.
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Legal documents seen by the New York Post refer to a 'Vulnerability-Trust exercise' from January 2026.
When attending a retreat at the Netflix-owned Sendero Ranch in Northern California, Baillie claims he admitted to undergoing supervised ketamine treatments at a Santa Barbara clinic toward the end of 2022.
Baillie maintains this was to treat clinical depression following the death of his mother.
Known for his work on the visual effects team for movies including Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Baillie was welcomed to Eyeline in a December 2024 LinkedIn post.
Originally founded as Scanline VFX in 1989 and Eyeline Studios in 2019, the company’s recent work has involved everything from Wednesday to Stranger Things.
After supposedly disclosing his Ketamine treatment as part of the trust exercise, Baillie says Netflix launched an investigation. The suit reports that on March 18, 2026, a Netflix investigator mentioned the incident "in a manner suggesting suspicion of recreational drug use."
The FX expert was let go in April 2026, with a Netflix attorney admitting "the ketamine therapy issue has factored into the termination."
Baillie's lawsuit adds that the investigation extended to alleged profanity and drinking, with a performance review warning him to "drop one or two less f-bombs but don’t stop entirely."
Elsewhere, it's said that Baillie drank Guinness while standing on his head at the retreat. After revealing how his father-in-law had taught him the trick, the papers say, "His colleague immediately asked for a demonstration, rather than withhold the openness that the session had encouraged, he performed the trick."
The lawsuit accuses Eyeline Studios CEO Jeff Shapiro of encouraging an alcohol-fuelled culture where "alcohol consumption was company-sponsored, leadership-modeled and condoned" and Shapiro apparently setting "the cultural tone concerning alcohol at the executive level."
The documents include over half a dozen examples of Shapiro being present at work events with alcohol in his hand. There's also a mention of Eyeline's CEO supposedly having a bar in his office "from which he served alcohol (to Baille) including after a successful meeting with Netflix’s CEO Ted Sarandos."
Alongside the above accusations, Baillie's lawsuit requests a jury trial, compensatory and punitive damages, lost wages, and damages for emotional distress.