reese witherspoon
Actress Reese Witherspoon has revealed that she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was 16 years old, the latest in a series of claims about abuse in the film industry.

"This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world, and a lot of situations and a lot of industries are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths," Witherspoon said at an event in Beverley Hills this week. "I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I've been having about anxiety, honestly, the guilt for not speaking up earlier."

Witherspoon, who debuted on the silver screen at 15, continued, "[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment."

The Academy Award-winning actress went on to claim that the incident was just one of a number of times she had been sexually abused throughout her career.

"I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn't," she said. "I've had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don't speak about them very often.

"But after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight about things that we're kind of told to sweep under the rug and not to talk about, it's made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I actually felt less alone this week than I have ever felt in my entire career."

America Ferrera Claims She Was Sexually Assaulted at 9 Years Old

America Ferrera claims in an Instagram post that a grown man sexually assaulted her at the age of nine.

"First time I can remember being sexually assaulted I was 9-years-old," the actress, who is best known for her role in Ugly Betty, wrote on Instagram. "I told no one and lived with the shame and guilt thinking all along that I, a 9-year-old child, was somehow responsible for the actions of a grown man."

"I had to see this man on a daily basis for years to come," she continued. "He would smile at me and wave, and I would hurry past him, my blood running cold, my guts carrying the burden of what only he & I knew - that he expected me to shut my mouth and smile back."

The post was a participation in the #MeToo campaign started by fellow actress Alyssa Milano, in which women have been encouraged to speak about their experiences of sexual assault following the claims surrounding the disgraced movie executive Harvey Weinstein and other high power figures in Hollywood.

"Ladies, let's break the silence so the next generation of girls won't have to live with this bullshit," she concluded.

Molly Ringwald Describes How Hollywood Sexual Predators Preyed on Her at 13

Actress Molly Ringwald - who got her big break in Hollywood in the mid-80s starring in cult classics including Pretty in Pink, The Breakfast Club, and Sixteen Candles - wrote about her experiences with sexual harassment in Hollywood at young age, her connection with Harvey Weinstein, and a vulgar comment attributed to Jeffery Katzenberg.

In a New Yorker article titled "All the Other Harvey's," the Riverdale star addressed an explicit comment Katzenberg was quoted as saying in a 1995 Movieline article.

"The head of a major studio - and, incidentally, someone who claims himself to be horrified by the Harvey allegations - was quoted as saying, 'I wouldn't know [Molly Ringwald] if she sat on my face,'" she wrote. "Maybe he was misquoted. If he ever sent a note of apology, it must have gotten lost in the mail."

Katzenberg offered Ringwald an apology to Ringwald Tuesday, saying in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter: "That Molly Ringwald had to read those words attributed to me and believe I said them is horrifying, mortifying and embarrassing to me. Anyone who knows me now or back then knows I do not use language like that as a matter of course, or tolerate it. Ms. Ringwald, 22 years too late, I am deeply, deeply sorry."

Ringwald also reveals how when she "was thirteen, a fifty-year-old crew member told me that he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against me with an erection. When I was fourteen, a married film director stuck his tongue in my mouth on set."

"At a time when I was trying to figure out what it meant to become a sexually viable young woman, at every turn some older guy tried to help speed up the process," Ringwald, now 49, wrote. "And all this went on despite my having very protective parents who did their best to shield me. I shudder to think of what would have happened had I not had them."

Ringwald's connection to Weinstein was fleeting, saying that she was "warned about the producer, but I had never heard of him and had no reason to fear him." She had little actual interactions with the disgraced producer while filming the Weinstein-backed 1990 movie Strike It Rich. Ringwald said she was "lucky" that she was never "cajoled into a taxi, nor did I have to turn down giving or getting a massage."

Facebook: Bjork Doubles Down on Accusations against Director Lars Von Trier

in the spirit of #metoo i would like to lend women around the world a hand with a more detailed description of my experience with a danish director . it feels extremely difficult to come out with something of this nature into the public , especially when immediately ridiculed by offenders . i fully sympathise with everyone who hesitates , even for years . but i feel it is the right time especially now when it could make a change . here comes a list of the encounters that i think count as sexual harassment :
  1. after each take the director ran up to me and wrapped his arms around me for a long time in front of all crew or alone and stroked me sometimes for minutes against my wishes
  2. when after 2 months of this i said he had to stop the touching , he exploded and broke a chair in front of everyone on set . like someone who has always been allowed to fondle his actresses . then we all got sent home .
  3. during the whole filming process there were constant awkward paralysing unwanted whispered sexual offers from him with graphic descriptions , sometimes with his wife standing next to us .
  4. while filming in sweden , he threatened to climb from his room´s balcony over to mine in the middle of the night with a clear sexual intention , while his wife was in the room next door . i escaped to my friends room . this was what finally woke me up to the severity of all this and made me stand my ground
  5. fabricated stories in the press about me being difficult by his producer . this matches beautifully the weinstein methods and bullying . i have never eaten a shirt . not sure that is even possible .
  6. I didn't comply or agree on being sexually harassed . that was then portrayed as me being difficult . if being difficult is standing up to being treated like that , i´ll own it .
hope

let´s break this curse

warmth

björk


Comment: Von Trier denied the accusations. On Monday he told a Danish paper, "That is not the case - although we didn't get along, that's a fact." Some more on Von Trier:
Von Trier has worked on a number of high-profile movies including the 2013 film Nymphomaniac which starred Shia LaBeouf, Willem Dafoe, Jamie Bell, Christian Slater and Uma Thurman.

The film contains many sexually explicit scenes, prompting critics to accuse him of producing a pornographic work.

In 2011, he caused a stir at the Cannes Film Festival when he appeared to joke about declaring himself 'a Nazi' and that he 'understands Hitler.'

He also raised eyebrows when he said in jest that he intends to make a pornographic film with 'a lot of very, very unpleasant sex' starring Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg, according to The Guardian.

Dunst and Gainsbourg starred in Von Trier's 2011 film Melancholia.

The poor attempt at humor prompted the organizers at Cannes to declare Von Trier persona non grata.