Boys Will Be Boys

by Clementine Ford

  Kobe Bryant: In 2003, the NBA star was arrested in connection with a sexual assault complaint filed by a nineteen-year-old woman. The woman alleged Bryant had raped her in the room of a hotel in which she worked. He told police he’d had sex with the woman but claimed it was consensual. In late 2004, the case was dropped, but Bryant released a statement reading: ‘Although I truly believe this encounter between us was consensual, I recognize now that she did not and does not view this incident the same way I did . . . I now understand how she feels that she did not consent to this encounter.’ Although Bryant lost some sponsorship deals at the time, most of them were resumed a couple of years later. In 2007, CNN estimated his endorsement deals to be worth approximately US$16 million a year. In 2018, after he’d retired from professional sports, he won an Academy Award for his work on an animated short called Dear Basketball. That same year, ESPN announced they would be launching a new show with Bryant at the helm.

  Don Burke: In 2017, a Fairfax investigation revealed the former television presenter had faced a slew of sexual harassment allegations during his years in the Australian television industry, including that he commented frequently on the size of women’s vaginas and what sexual positions they favoured. Despite numerous women reporting his behaviour to network executives at the time, Burke remained in his role for years. He has denied all allegations, saying only that he was a perfectionist.

  Louis C.K.: Rumours of the comedian’s treatment of women (principally, masturbating in front of them without their consent) had always been ignored or denied by him. However, a 2017 article in the New York Times forced him to confess to the longstanding allegations against him. Louis C.K.’s career did suffer following the article’s publication; but not for long. In March 2018, an article appeared in the Hollywood Reporter canvassing opinions from fellow comedians as to how the disgraced comic could return to the stage. ‘I don’t think people want this to be a life sentence,’ said Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman. Louis Faranda, executive talent producer for the comedy club Carolines, predicted C.K. would be back ‘within a year, making fun of his mistakes’. And indeed he was, appearing unexpectedly (and unapologetically) at the Comedy Cellar less than a year after his disgrace. His first set included a rape joke.

  Bertrand Cantat: In 2003, the former frontman of French rock band Noir Désir was convicted of murdering the French actress Marie Trintignant after fatally beating her in a hotel room. He served four years in prison for the crime. In 2007, as he prepared to release his first album since leaving prison, he called it ‘despicable’ to have become ‘the symbol of violence against women’. In 2017, the French music magazine Les Inrockuptibles featured Cantat on the magazine’s cover. Cantat was promoting a new album at the time. In 2018, he was booked to play at a series of music festivals around France but withdrew after a public backlash.

  Wayne Carey: In 1997, Carey pleaded guilty to indecent assault after grabbing the breast of a woman passing by on a busy Melbourne street. In 2007, Carey was arrested by police in Florida after very publicly glassing his then girlfriend in the face and neck. Two days later, the Nine Network sacked him while 3AW announced it wouldn’t be renewing his contract. In 2012, he joined the AFL commentary team at Triple M and was given a role on One HD’s short-lived The Game Plan. A year later, the Seven Network employed him as a host on a series of Talking Footy specials. The following year, he was contracted permanently as a panellist on Talking Footy and as a commentator for Friday night AFL games.

  Nick Carter: In 2018, the singer and actress Melissa Schuman filed a police report alleging the Backstreet Boy had raped her in 2002. Schuman was a virgin at the time, and claims Carter refused to listen as she repeatedly said no. Carter has claimed that his sexual interactions with Schuman were all consensual. The allegations follow a police report filed against Carter in 2006, alleging he had forced a twenty-year-old woman to perform oral sex on him. In 2012, he performed with the Backstreet Boys on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. In 2015, he was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. He returned in 2017 as a guest judge. That same year, he appeared as a judge on the show Boy Band.

  Bill Clinton: A number of women have accused the former US president of sexual assault and/or harassment, with the alleged incidents dating back to 1978. In an extensive interview with NBC in 1999, Juanita Broaddrick claimed Clinton raped her in a hotel room when she was a volunteer working on his gubernatorial campaign in Arkansas. Several people back up Broaddrick’s claims, including a friend who said she found Broaddrick shortly after the alleged assault. Broaddrick says Clinton attempted to apologise to her in 1991, after she saw him outside a meeting in Little Rock. Since coming forward, Broaddrick has been accused of being a stooge for the right and even of making up the rape story because she didn’t want her boyfriend to know she had ‘cheated’ on him. Clinton served two terms in the White House.

  Sean Connery: In 1965, the James Bond star told Playboy, ‘I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman—although I don’t recommend doing it in the same way that you’d hit a man. An openhanded slap is justified—if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning. If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or bloody-minded continually, then I’d do it. I think a man has to be slightly advanced, ahead of the woman.’ In 1993, he reportedly told Vanity Fair, ‘There are women who take it to the wire. That’s what they are looking for, the ultimate confrontation. They want a smack.’ His first wife, Diane Cilento, has alleged that he verbally and physically abused her during their marriage. In 1999, Connery was declared the Sexiest Man of the Century by People magazine. In 2000, he received a knighthood.

  David Copperfield: In early 2018, a woman named Brittney Lewis claimed the magician had drugged and assaulted her in 1988, when she was a teenage model. She says she reported the incident to the FBI in 2007, the year that pageant winner Lacey Carroll accused Copperfield of sexually assaulting her in his home in the Bahamas. In 2017, Copperfield earned US$61.5 million.

  Bill Cosby: Cosby’s career may be well and truly over now, but allegations of sexual assault and rape have been made against the comedian for decades. He has been accused by more than fifty women of charges relating to rape, child sexual abuse, sexual battery and drug-facilitated sexual assault. His alleged crimes date back to 1965 and span a period of more than forty years. Although the allegations were hardly a secret, little attention was paid until until male comedian Hannibal Buress gave voice to them in 2014. That same year, tickets to Cosby’s shows reportedly netted almost US$11 million. His net worth in 2018 was estimated to be approximately US$400 million.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson: In 2014, Tchiya Amet published a blog post in which she alleged the astrophysicist drugged and raped her in 1984, when they studied together at the University of Texas. She repeated the claims in 2016 and then relinked to the blogpost in 2017 as the #MeToo movement began to take off. In 2015, the US National Academy of Sciences awarded the Public Welfare Medal to Tyson in recognition of his ‘extraordinary role in exciting the public about the wonders of science’.

  Johnny Depp: In 2016, Amber Heard filed for divorce from her actor husband and applied for a temporary restraining order against him. She alleged Depp had begun ‘obsessing over something that wasn’t true’ and ‘became extremely angry’. She claimed the actor threw a phone at her ‘with extreme force’, and it connected with her cheek; photographic evidence of a bruise was later tendered. Claims of violence were backed up by friends of Heard, while Depp was publicly supported by the comedian Doug Stanhope, who in a column for The Wrap accused Heard of ‘blackmailing’ Depp. The director Terry Gilliam (who later criticised the #MeToo movement) tweeted a link to the column with the comment, ‘Like many of Johnny Depp’s friends I’m discovering that Amber is a better actress than I thought.’ Heard and Depp eventually settled out of court, with Heard declaring she’d donate the proceeds to charity. Depp continues to represent Dior as their face of Sauvage. In 2017, following news Depp would res
ume his role as Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, author J.K. Rowling said in a statement, ‘Based on our understanding of the circumstances, the filmmakers and I are not only comfortable sticking with our original casting, but genuinely happy to have Johnny playing a major character in the movies.’

  Michael Douglas: Journalist and author Susan Braudy has alleged that, when she was in charge of Douglas’s New York production office in the late 1980s, he sexually harassed her and once masturbated in her presence. She claims she was asked to sign a confidentiality agreement, and that her employment was terminated shortly after. Her account has been corroborated by friends of hers from the time, including the author Michael Wolff. Douglas has called the story ‘a complete lie’. In 2004, Douglas was the recipient of the Cecil B. DeMille award.

  Ched Evans: Evans was convicted of rape in 2012, but successfully appealed his conviction on his release from prison (I have expanded on this case in ‘Asking for it’). While in prison he had discussions with football officials about the possibility of him returning to his club, Sheffield United, but ultimately he signed with Chesterfield FC just prior to his retrial. In 2017, Sheffield United FC bought him from Chesterfield for half a million pounds and offered him a three-year contract that quadrupled his salary.

  Michael Fassbender: In 2010, Sunawin ‘Leasi’ Andrews filed a restraining order against her former partner, Fassbender, that ordered him to stay at least a hundred yards away from her and her two children. She alleged abuse against the two-time Academy Award nominee that she claimed left her with US$24,000 in medical bills. She also alleged that, on one occasion, Fassbender returned from a night of partying with a friend and the two tried to get into bed with her. She left the room, but in her court filing detailed how, when she returned and tried to wake him the next morning, ‘he threw me over a chair and broke my nose’. Following the allegations, Fassbender went on to star in 12 Years A Slave (for which he received an Academy Award nomination), X-Men: First Class and Alien: Covenant.

  James Franco: In January 2018, allegations emerged claiming Franco had sexually harassed two students at his Studio 4 film school. One of them, Sarah Tither-Kaplan, said she felt Franco created ‘exploitative environments for non-celebrity women that he worked with under the guise of giving them opportunities’. By February, the number of accusers of sexual misconduct had risen to six. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that Franco would be returning to his starring role on HBO’s The Deuce.

  Mel Gibson: In 2010, Gibson was caught on tape telling his then wife Oksana Grigorieva that she ‘looked like a fucking bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of ni**ers it’ll be your fault’. (Gibson had also been captured on tape in 2006 saying, ‘Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.’) Shortly after, Grigorieva filed for a restraining order, claiming Gibson had punched her several times, causing injuries that included a broken tooth and a concussion. Gibson denied punching her, but admitted he had slapped her ‘one time’. In 2018, Gibson was nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.

  Alfred Hitchcock: In the early 1960s, the actress Tippi Hedren was under contract to work with the director she claimed subjected her to aggressive sexual advances. After she rejected him, Hitchcock is alleged to have ‘acted vengefully toward her on the set and then, when she was unwilling to work with him again, refused to let her work with other directors’. Decades later, Hedren stated publicly, ‘All those years ago, it was still the studio kind of situation. Studios were the power. And I was at the end of that, and there was absolutely nothing I could do legally whatsoever.’ Hitchcock is widely regarded as being one of cinema’s most important and influential auteurs. At the time of his death in 1980, he had a net worth of US$200 million.

  Dustin Hoffman: As the #MeToo movement saw allegations emerge against a series of men in Hollywood, Hoffman was accused of having sexually harassed a number of former colleagues and employees, with one allegation dating back to 1984. Kathryn Rossetter claimed the actor had regularly groped her while the pair were performing together in Death of a Salesman on Broadway. She also says the actor exposed her body to the stage crew one night. The allegations came shortly after Anna Graham Hunter accused the actor of sexually harassing her when she was a seventeen-year-old intern on the film set of Death of a Salesman in 1985. A third woman says Hoffman exposed himself to her in a hotel room when she was a high school student. A fourth accused the actor of digitally penetrating her without her consent while they worked on the 1987 film Ishtar. A fifth alleged the same thing, this time while the pair were in a car filled with people. Even Meryl Streep has said Hoffman grabbed her breast the first time they met on the set of Kramer vs. Kramer. So far, nine women have alleged sexual misconduct against the actor. It’s not yet clear what the impact will be on his career going forward but, throughout the decades this abuse is alleged to have occurred, he continued to win accolades and roles, including two Academy Awards for Best Actor.

  Matthew ‘Matty’ Johns: A 2002 pack sex incident involving Johns and eleven of his teammates was brought to light in the 2009 broadcast of Four Corners’ ‘Code of Silence’. A nineteen-year-old woman was left with PTSD and suicidal ideation after her experience with the Cronulla Sharks (the team captained by Johns). By mutual agreement, Johns resigned from his role on Channel Nine’s The Footy Show in the wake of the Four Corners report. Less than six months later, Nine invited Johns to rejoin its stable, offering an annual contract worth $600,000—more than he’d been on at the time of his resignation. He declined, accepting a deal in 2010 with Nine’s network rival Channel Seven. Since 2011, he has co-hosted The Grill on Triple M radio. In 2012, he joined Fox Sports Australia, where he has hosted his own show ever since.

  R. Kelly: Allegations against the musician span twenty-four years, dating right back to his (illegal) marriage to Aaliyah in 1994, when she was only fifteen. He has been sued numerous times for inappropriate sexual contact with a minor, settling out of court each time. He was at one point charged with creating child exploitation material, but was acquitted on the grounds that the jury couldn’t be certain the person featuring opposite him in the video was a minor. In 2017, R. Kelly finished an arena tour and his music appeared on the soundtrack to Pitch Perfect 3. He has another tour planned for 2018.

  John Kricfalusi: In 2018, two women accused the creator of Ren & Stimpy of preying on them when they were minors. Robyn Byrd and Katie Rice both allege Kricfalusi spent a period of time grooming them before sexually abusing them. Byrd was only sixteen when the animator flew her to Los Angeles to be his live-in girlfriend and ‘intern’; their ‘relationship’ was an open secret among his co-workers. His lawyer has acknowledged the existence of this relationship, attributing it to a period of ‘emotional and mental illness’. Nickelodeon continues to air Ren & Stimpy. Kricfalusi’s net worth is estimated at US$10 million.

  Matt Lauer: Numerous women have accused the former NBC host of sexual misconduct, including one woman who says Lauer exposed himself to her in his office and then reprimanded her for not performing a sex act on him. After the allegations became public, NBC fired the Today show host. But Lauer’s misconduct is said to have been widely known for years. Several women said they complained to network executives, but their complaints were ignored. At the time of his dismissal, Lauer was on an annual salary of US$25 million.

  Danny Masterson: Multiple women have alleged that US actor Masterson raped them in the early 2000s, with the first police report against him being filed in 2004. In response, the Church of Scientology (of which Masterson is a member) submitted more than fifty affidavits denying the woman’s story. In March 2017, long before #MeToo, journalist Tony Ortega revealed the Los Angeles Police Department had been investigating Masterson for ‘at least three alleged cases of rape or sodomy of women who were also Scientologists and who claim they were pressured by the Church of Scientology not to contact police or go public with their accusations’. Throughout this time, Masterson was starr
ing in and executive producing the Netflix series The Ranch. It was eventually announced in December 2017 that the streaming service would be writing him out of the series.

  T.J. Miller: During the early 2000s, the Silicon Valley star is alleged to have sexually assaulted and punched a fellow student at George Washington University. The claims were corroborated by a number of people who attended GWU at the time, as well as tested in a student court. In the intervening years, at least three sources in the comedy world confirmed that Miller joked privately about having perpetrated violence against a woman in the past. Some female performers told The Daily Beast that they refused to work with Miller because of this. Miller went on to appear in the sitcom Silicon Valley and to star in The Emoji Movie and Deadpool 2. His career has seemingly unravelled after a series of alcohol-related incidents, but a comedy club booker has said of him, ‘Maybe he’ll do rehab humour for his comeback.’

  Roy Moore: In November 2017, nine women came forward to allege sexual misconduct against the US Senate candidate and former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama. Three of these women allege Moore sexually assaulted them while they were still minors, with one as young as fourteen at the time. Most of the incidents were alleged to have occurred in the late 1970s, when Moore was an assistant district attorney. Although numerous high-profile Republicans called for Moore to withdraw from his Senate campaign, he was endorsed by none other than President Donald Trump. After initially cutting funds to his campaign, the Republican National Committee later renewed their support of Moore. He lost the election, but shortly after was granted an annual pension of just over US$135,000. In March 2018, it was reported he was seeking US$250,000 in donations to help him fight a lawsuit brought against him by Leigh Corfman, the woman who says he molested her when she was fourteen. At the time of reporting, he had raised little more than US$30,000.