Director Brett Ratner and celebrated actor Dustin Hoffman are the latest Hollywood personalities to be accused of sexual assault and harassment. In a Los Angeles Times report, six actresses, including Natasha Henstridge, Olivia Munn and Jaime Ray Newman, have accused the director and producer of Rush Hour, X-Men and Horrible Bosses of harassment and misconduct.
Henstridge says that she was forced to perform oral sex on Ratner in the early 1990s. In another incident described by the newspaper, Newman recalls Ratner sitting next to her during a flight, and “loudly describing sex acts he wanted to perform on her in explicit detail”. Ratner also allegedly showed Newman nude photos of his girlfriend and “was graphically describing giving me oral sex and how he was addicted to it”. Ratner’s lawyer dismissed the allegations.
Following allegations of misconduct by Kevin Spacey against an underage actor, Dustin Hoffman too has been charged with harassing an underage person. Writer Anna Graham Hunter, who was a 17-year-old intern in 1985, was allegedly groped and humiliated by Hoffman on the sets of the television movie Death of a Salesman. Hoffman was 48 years old at the time.
Hunter wrote in Hollywood Reporter, “He asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did. He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me. One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, ‘I’ll have a hard-boiled egg … and a soft-boiled clitoris.’ His entourage burst out laughing.” Hoffman’s behaviour lasted over the five weeks that Hunter was on the sets, she said.
Hoffman has apologised for his behaviour: “I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”
Meanwhile, more allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced against Kevin Spacey after he was accused of trying to force himself on under-age actor Anthony Rapp. Filmmaker Tony Montana claimed that Spacey groped him in 2003.
“Incidents regarding Spacey are also alleged to have taken place in the UK while the two-time Oscar winner was the artistic director at the Old Vic in London between 2004 and 2015,” the BBC reported.
Mexican actor Roberto Cavazos wrote in a Facebook post that Spacey swooped down on young male actors. “It seems the only requirement was to be a male under the age of 30 for Mr Spacey to feel free to touch us,” Cavazos wrote in his post.
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