Six Women Accuses Filmmaker Brett Ratner of Sexual Harassment and Misconduct
Natasha Henstridge also claims the director forced her to perform oral sex on him.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ne...se-brett-ratner-harassment-misconduct-1053679
High-profile director Brett Ratner has been accused of sexual assault or harassment by six women, including actresses Olivia Munn and Natasha Henstridge, who detailed their experiences with Ratner to the
Los Angeles Times.
Henstridge claims that Ratner forced her to perform oral sex on her in his New York apartment in the 1990s. The actress, then a 19-year-old model, was hanging out with the then-music video director watching TV. Henstridge fell asleep, she told the
Times, and when she woke up the others had left and she was alone with Ratner. He blocked the exit and began touching himself, she tells the
Times, and then he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
“He strong-armed me in a real way. He physically forced himself on me,” she said. “At some point, I gave in and he did his thing.”
Ratner's attorney Martin Singer dismissed the accounts of Henstridge and the five other women, who opened up to the
Times in a series of interviews, saying the alleged sexual misconduct occurred in private homes, on movie sets or at industry events. None of the women the Times spoke to reported the allegations to the police, the paper says in its Wednesday (Nov. 1) story.
"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 to
The Times in a 10-page letter. “Furthermore, no woman has ever requested or received any financial settlement from my client.”
Henstridge was compelled to speak out, as hundreds of women have come forward about their experiences with sexual harassment or assault, including by such high-profile figures as Harvey Weinstein and director James Toback, in recent weeks.
Ratner acknowledged spending time with Henstridge but disputed her claims with Singer accusing her of being, “upset after learning my client had a girlfriend who he would not leave” for her.
Munn, meanwhile, said that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she visited him on the set of the 2004 movie he directed,
After the Sunset. She wrote about the incident in a 2010 collection of essays but didn't name Ratner. Still, he memorably boasted about his exploits with Munn on a 2011 episode of
Attack of the Show, a TV program that Munn had previously co-hosted.
"I used to date Olivia Munn, I will be honest with everybody here,” he said. “When she was ‘Lisa.’ That was the problem. She wasn’t Asian back then.”
“I banged her a few times ... but I forgot her,” Ratner added.
Days later, he told Howard Stern on the shock jock's eponymous SiriusXM radio show that he was lying and apologized for making her look like "a whore." "I felt horrible,” Ratner said. “I said I banged her three times, which wasn’t true.” Munn was new to Hollywood when she had her 2004 experience with Ratner and was asked to drop off some food in his trailer as a favor.
She was under the impression that he wouldn't be there, but he was. "He walked out ... with his belly sticking out, no pants on, shrimp cocktail in one hand and he was furiously masturbating in the other," Munn told the
Times.
"And before I literally could even figure out where to escape or where to look, he ejaculated." She told the
Times she let out a "startled scream" and raced out of his trailer and when she told the man who asked her to make the delivery, he said, Munn recalled, "It wasn't a shock. It wasn't surprise. It was just, ‘Ugh, sorry about that.’"
Munn said she called her sister, who urged her to speak to an attorney, but the lawyer she met with dissuaded her from going up against a powerful director.
She also talked to the
Times about running into Ratner at a number of Hollywood events after the incident. She said she ran into him at a 2010 CAA party. Ratner asked her why she hated him and she said it's "more of a dislike."
Ratner angrily responded, Munn told the
Times, “Why? I bought 10 of your magazines and came over all of them.”
The other women accusing Ratner in the
Times are actresses Jaime Ray Newman, Katharine Towne, Eri Sasaki and Jorina King.
To read the other four women's accounts:
http://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-brett-ratner-allegations-20171101-htmlstory.html