Much activity since we last checked in on the perpetual falling-dominoes video of sexual harassment allegations flying out of the entertainment industry – so much so that we’ll have to just give you a brief summary of all the shitty men and what they’ve done. Maybe it’ll be a regular feature!
- Our subject of discussion yesterday, skeezy producer/director Brett Ratner, has responded to the multiple charges of allegation and assault as only a classy guy like Brett Ratner could: by suing an accuser. Specifically, he is suing actress Melanie Kohler, who is not quoted in the bombshell L.A. Times piece on Ratner, but rather told her story in a Facebook post a week earlier. Suing for Facebook defamation is also Bill O’Reilly’s current power move, so good company to keep there, Ratty! Meanwhile, Ratner’s Jared Leto-fronted Hugh Hefner biopic is dead (Leto is even pulling a Mariah Carey-style “I don’t know her” about the entire project) and Warner Brothers will not renew its deal with Ratner’s production company, RatPac-Dune Entertainment.
- Dustin Hoffman has been accused of harassment by two women: playwright Wendy Riss Gatsiounis, who told Variety about a pair of pitch meetings that turned into propositions in 1991, and Anna Graham Hunter, who recalled his physical and vocal overtures on the set of Death of a Salesman in a guest column at THR. (She was 17 at the time.) Hoffman declined to comment to Variety, though his Tootsie screenwriter Murray Schisgal, who Gatsiounis recalls being present at the meetings, insisted, “I have no recollection of this meeting or of any of the behavior or actions described.” Of Hunter, Hoffman told THR, “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.”
- Reps for Kevin Spacey, accused over the weekend of harassment and assault by actor Anthony Rapp (when Rapp was 14), have announced he is following Harvey Weinstein’s lead (yeesh) and “taking the time necessary to seek evaluation and treatment.” Netflix, which initially merely made clear their previous intention to end the Spacey-fronted House of Cards at the end of its in-production sixth season, have since decided to suspend production on the series; it’s not yet clear what they will do with the Gore Vidal biopic Gore, also starring Spacey, which finished shooting last month. And meanwhile, more men have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by Spacey.
- Jeremy Piven is “unequivocally” denying allegations that he groped actress and reality star Ariane Bellmar on the set of Entourage. And really, how could you possibly watch that show and think any untoward, exploitative behavior might have occurred during its production?
- And the man who started it all, Harvey Weinstein, continues to act like a goddamn comic book supervillain, challenging his termination by the company that bears his name. In court papers filed Wednesday, he is demanding arbitration, and that the company hand over personnel and employment records, because, you see, he’s in a “unique position to offer insight, and further explain and contextualize his emails,” and so if he has those and those other records too, “he can more efficiently assist the Company in its investigation of these issues and defense of the NY AG investigation and any other claims asserted against the Company.” Riiiiiight. Thanks, Harv.