Olivia Munn, Natasha Henstridge, and four other women have accused Brett Ratner, the producer/director behind such films as Rush Hour, Red Dragon, and X-Men: The Last Stand, of sexual harassment and misconduct.
The Los Angeles Times’ Amy Kaufman and Daniel Miller reported the allegations, which include Species star Henstridge’s account of forced oral sex, The Newsroom star Munn’s recollection of the director masturbating in front of her, and stories of the director offering speaking roles to women on the set of Rush Hour 2 in exchange for sexual favors.
Ratner wields a fair amount of power in Hollywood, as not only the director of several terrible but financially successful films, but the producer of many, many more (including The Revenant, Black Mass, Rules Don’t Apply, and Horrible Bosses, in which Jennifer Aniston plays a woman who sexually harasses her male employee, hahahaha).
Ratner’s attorney, Martin Singer, disputes the stories in a ten-page letter to the Times. “I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment,” Singer wrote, which isn’t entirely true; Munn wrote about Ratner’s harassment of her clear back in 2010, at first describing the filmmaker and his actions without naming him, but Ratner confirmed his participation in the event by announcing, “I banged her a few times, but I forgot her.” He subsequently walked the claim back to Howard Stern, telling the radio host, “She’s actually talented. The problem is I made her look like she’s a whore.” This was around the same time he was fired from the Oscars for his comment that “Rehearsal is for fags,” so yeah, he’s all class, Brett Ratner.
The Los Angeles Times, by the way, is also the paper that broke the allegations against filmmaker James Toback, which are now into the hundreds. Ratner is a longtime friend of Mr. Toback; his RatPress imprint republished Toback’s 1972 book about Jim Brown, and actress Ambika Leigh says Toback’s assault on her occurred at Ratner’s house. Ratner is also buddies with Roman Polanski, who appeared in Ratner’s movie Rush Hour 3. Just thought those things were worth mentioning.
Oh, and this: He’s currently attached to direct a Hugh Hefner biopic starring Jared Leto. Uh huh.