Tag: hollywoodgate
Pope Francis ‘slander’ comment angers Chile abuse victims
Pope Francis has triggered anger in Chile after accusing victims of a pedophile priest of slander
Francis said there was “no proof” for their claims that abuse by Father Fernando Karadima had been covered up by another man, Bishop Juan Barros.
“There is not one single piece of proof against him (Bishop Barros). It is all slander. Is that clear?” the Pope said.
One Karadima victim said the Pope’s earlier plea for forgiveness over clerical sex abuse was “empty”.
The Pope made his comments on Thursday before celebrating Mass outside the city of Iquique in northern Chile.
“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” the Pope told journalists.
Lifetime of penance
Juan Carlos Cruz was one of the bishop’s accusers who was quick to condemn the Pope’s stance.
“As if I could have taken a selfie or photo while Karadima abused me and others with Juan Barros standing next to him watching everything,” he tweeted.
“These people are absolutely crazy, and @Pontifex (the Pope’s Twitter handle) is talking about reparation to the victims. Nothing has changed, and his plea for forgiveness is empty.”
Bishop of Osorno, Juan Barros, denies allegations he covered up his mentor’s abuse of boys
Another Barros accuser, James Hamilton, told a news conference the response revealed an “unknown face” of the pontiff.
“What the Pope has done today is offensive and painful, and not only against us, but against everyone seeking to end the abuses,” he said.
Earlier in his Chile trip, Francis had met victims of sexual abuse by priests in the country. He cried with them and said he felt “pain and shame” over the scandal.
The US-based NGO Bishop Accountability says almost 80 members of Catholic clergy have been accused of child sex abuse in Chile since 2000.
- Why Pope’s trip to Chile is a challenge
- Protesters challenge Pope on Church sex abuse
- Chile churches attacked before Pope visit
The Church suffered a body blow in Chile in 2010 when Father Karadima was publicly accused of molesting several teenaged boys in the capital, Santiago, starting in the 1980s.
Mr Cruz claims Bishop Barros was present when Father Karadima – then the bishop’s mentor – kissed and groped him and another boy.
While Bishop Barros has not been accused of abuse, the Pope has been criticised for appointing him bishop of Osorno in 2015. Barros’s ordination ceremony had to be cut short over protests in the cathedral.
Father Karadima was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing teenage boys in 2011 and sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer”.
He never faced criminal prosecution in Chile as too much time had passed, but the judge who heard victims’ testimony in a year-long investigation described them as “truthful and reliable”.
Pope Francis arrived in Peru late on Thursday for a three-day visit which will conclude his two-nation South America trip.
Article via: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42745170
Stacey Dash Comes For Oprah, Meryl Streep, Seal And Everyone Else
Stacey Dash Says Oprah & Meryl Streep Knew About Harvey Weinstein, Plus She Claps Back At Seal For Saying She Lives In The Sunken Place
After Seal reposted a meme on his Instagram that suggested that Oprah purposely turned a blind eye to Weinstein’s sexually depraved behavior, Stacey Dash echoed his sentiments. However, Seal did not support Dash and went on to say “Don’t try and use me as a pawn against Oprah, or any of your political games,”.
“Stacey Dash, keep my name out of your mouth. Do not retweet [or] re-quote anything I said in order to reinforce your self-hating agenda. You live in the Sunken Place.”
Dash responded to Seal in an open letter, in which she also took the opportunity to cast shade towards Oprah and other celebrities that might have known of Weinstein’s sexual misconducts. Dash went on to deconstruct the #MeToo movement to nothing more than high school politics.
“I won’t walk back what I believe. Oprah the homecoming queen, prom queen and class president knew. Meryl, the high school drama star knew. Most of those women wearing black knew. The class clown, Seth McFarland knew. He joked about it a few years ago on the Oscars, Hollywood’s equivalent of the prom,” Dash writes.
“You know how I can say this? BECAUSE I KNEW. So how “clueless” am I? I knew enough when meeting Harvey Weinstein, to bring a male chaperone and it paid off as he did make a move on me. My chaperone blocked him and said, ‘Not this one.’ You can read all about it here. My chaperone knew.”
The actress continued, “As so many of my critics like to point out, aside from “Clueless” I am nobody. So how did this “nobody” know about Harvey Weinstein, and the popular, powerful mogul, Oprah Winfrey did not? How did the Oscar-laden “Iron Lady” Meryl Streep not know? Hollywood is one big, dark, John Hughes movie. Some of us sit with the regular kids. Some are the outsiders. However, the cool kids sit at the cool kids lunch table and they talk.”
“They talk a lot and they share their elite information among their members at that table. They know the deal. They know how it works and they know they have an image to uphold. From the popular crowd to the freaks and geeks, they all knew the faculty to avoid. Let’s just say right here, I am not judging nor am I condemning. I am simply doing the math and coming up with what appears to be an obvious answer. Occam’s Razor says the simplest answer is usually the correct one. I am writing this with Occam’s Razor.”
Read Dash’s full accusation here.
Aziz Ansari Accused of Sexual Misconduct
An anonymous woman recounted how the comedian attempted to pressure her into sex on a date
Aziz Ansari, the Parks and Recreation and Master of Nonestar who has built a career out of using comedy as a means to explore modern relationships, has been accused of sexual misconduct by an anonymous woman who says she went out on a date with him shortly after the 2017 Emmy Awards.
Twenty-three-year-old photographer “Grace” described the encounter to babe, saying she met Ansari while she was taking photos at the Emmy Awards after-party. The two bonded over Ansari’s camera and eventually exchanged phone numbers. According to the woman, Ansari invited her out on a date on Monday, September 25.
On the night in question, the two allegedly met at Ansari’s TriBeCa apartment and walked over to Grand Banks, an oyster bar aboard a schooner. Grace said that they left abruptly to go back to his apartment, where Ansari began to kiss her. She told babe that she was uncomfortable with how quickly the situation escalated. “It was really quick,” she said. “Everything was pretty much touched and done within ten minutes of hooking up, except for actual sex.”
Grace said she attempted to indicate her disinterest, but Ansari followed her around the apartment as though he was executing “a football play.” “It was 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down my throat again,” she said. “It was really repetitive. It felt like a fucking game.” She said he then suggested they move to the couch, where he continued to attempt to initiate sex, though she wasn’t interested: “I know I was physically giving off cues that I wasn’t interested. I don’t think that was noticed at all, or if it was, it was ignored.”
She tried to verbally communicate her disinterest: “I said I don’t want to feel forced because then I’ll hate you, and I’d rather not hate you,” she said. Ansari appeared to understand at first, but soon continued his overtures. She said he only appeared to get the message when she emphatically said ‘no’ after he’d bent her over in front of a large mirror. He suggested they “just chill” on his couch.
Afterward, Ansari called her a car. Grace said she cried the whole trip home. She texted Ansari after the date, explaining how uncomfortable she’d felt: “Last night might’ve been fun for you, but it wasn’t for me. When we got back to your place, you ignored clear non-verbal cues; you kept going with advances. You had to have noticed I was uncomfortable.” She explained she was telling him this so that “maybe the next girl doesn‘t have to cry on the ride home.” Ansari reportedly responded, “Clearly, I misread things in the moment and I’m truly sorry.”
“I believe that I was taken advantage of by Aziz,” Grace told babe. “I was not listened to and ignored. It was by far the worst experience with a man I’ve ever had.”
Ansari has delved into the nature of sexual assault and harassment both during live sets and on his show, Master of None. During his 2015 Madison Square Garden special, he asked women in the crowd who had been followed home by “creepy dudes” to raise their hands. “What I’ve learned, as a guy, is to just ask women questions and listen to what they have to say,” he told the Daily Beast of the bit. “You’ll get blown away by the things they tell you. You’ll think, ‘What the fuck? This is way darker than anything I’d imagined.’”
Read more via: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/01/aziz-ansari-accused-of-sexual-misconduct
Sylvester Stallone accused of sexual misconduct from 27 years ago
A woman has filed a police report accusing Sylvester Stallone of sexual assault from 27 years ago.
The “Rocky” and “Rambo” actor/director’s reps told TMZ they are aware of the allegation and are contemplating filing a complaint against the accuser. His representatives say they have been told the woman is claiming she was raped, according to TMZ.
The Santa Monica Police Department says it will investigate the claim despite the expiration of the statute of limitations, which in California is 10 years for sexual assault or battery.
This isn’t the first time Stallone has found himself vehemently denying a sexual misconduct allegation. In the past, his representatives have sometimes portrayed his accusers as opportunists looking for fame or money.
Stallone’s attorney Marty Singer, according to TMZ, was ready to file a complaint that his client’s latest accuser be investigated for filing a false report. Singer said a media outlet contacted him more than a month ago and said the accuser is alleging that Stallone raped her in his Santa Monica office in 1990.
Stallone, 71, admits to having spent three days with the woman in Israel during a movie shoot in 1987, but denies seeing her at all in 1990.
Last month, the Daily Mail obtained a 1986 police report alleging that Stallone forced a 16-year-old into a threesome with himself and his bodyguard, Mike De Luca, at a Las Vegas hotel. The accuser says she consented to have sex with Stallone but not De Luca, and that Stallone threatened to “beat her head in” if she told anyone.
In January 2013, the New York Post obtained documents showing that Stallone had reached a confidential multimillion-dollar settlement in 1987 with his half-sister Toni-Ann Filiti.
Filiti, who was 18 years younger than Stallone, had alleged that he abused her for years. Filiti died of lung cancer in 2012. As part of the settlement, the New York Post said, Filiti destroyed several secretly recorded tapes she made of conversations with Stallone, the Post said.
Jacqueline Stallone, mother to both Sylvester Stallone and Filiti, came to her son’s defense, telling the Post that her daughter was addicted to prescription painkillers and was desperate for cash.
In 2001, Margie Carr, an exotic dancer who worked out at the same Santa Monica fitness center as Stallone, filed a lawsuit alleging he “forcibly pinned” her against a wall and tore off her clothes.
Singer said at the time that Carr’s claim was “purely fictional and totally without merit,” and that she had sold her story to a tabloid prior to filing her lawsuit.
Stallone has had a career resurgence following the critical and box-office success of “Creed,” the 1985 sequel to his “Rocky” films. He co-wrote and will reprise his role as Rocky Balboa in “Creed 2,” but recently stepped down as its director, saying he believes someone younger should helm the movie. Steven Caple Jr. will direct, marking his first such assignment on a major studio feature.
Article via: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/12/21/sylvester-stallone-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-from-27-years-ago/
Spotted Pig owner Ken Friedman kept a ‘rape room’ where chef Mario Batali allegedly groped unconscious woman
“We called him the Red Menace,” Nelson, 40, said of Batali. “He tried to touch my breasts and told me that they were beautiful. He wanted to wrestle. As I was serving drinks to his table, he told me I should sit on his friend’s face.”
Dozens of interviews with employees at the Spotted Pig and its sister restaurants revealed a toxic top-down culture set by Friedman that not only tolerated sexual harassment, but relished it, The Times reported.
Ten women said Friedman, 56, subjected them to harassing behaviors during their time under his management, such as unwanted groping or demands for sexually explicit photos.
Server Natalie Saibel said that in 2015, Friedman ran his hands over her buttocks and groin while they were together in a room packed with patrons. He excused the crude groping by joking he had to be sure she wasn’t smuggling a forbidden cell phone, she told The Times.
Carla Rza Betts, a former wine director at the Spotted Pig and two other Friedman properties — the Breslin and the John Dory — said she eventually quit in 2013 after multiple incidents of harassment.
She said one night in 2009, Friedman took her to a rooftop bar near the Breslin to scope out the competition. Without asking, he leaned over and planted a kiss on her lips, she said.
“In the moment, you are not thinking at all,” Rza Betts, 39, told The Times. “He’s your boss. You don’t punch him. You just don’t kiss back, and pull away and try to shake it off.”
After she left in a cab, Friedman started pelting her with inappropriate text messages that she saved and shared with the newspaper.
“G’nite gorgeous. Send me a sexy picture,” he wrote in the first.
“You wish,” Rza Betts wrote back before politely thanking him for an “excellent evening!”
“(Come) on. One sexy pic,” he pleaded.
She turned him down again, but he wouldn’t relent.
“Just 1. A hot 1,” he wrote. “Show me your body.”
When Rza Betts asked if Friedman was trying to “hustle” her, he responded, “Yes. Come on. Just one sexy picture. Please.”
He finally signed off by calling her a “meanie.”
“I was embarrassed, felt taken advantage of and emotionally manipulated,” Rza Betts said.
Friedman, who opened the Spotted Pig on West 11th Street in the West Village with the backing of Batali and music mogul Jay-Z, issued an apology published by The Times.
“Some incidents were not as described, but context and content are not today’s discussion,” he said. “I apologize now publicly for my actions.”
He called his behavior “abrasive, rude and frankly wrong,” and said the women who work at his restaurants “are among the best in the business and putting any of them in humiliating situations is unjustifiable.”
His company said Tuesday that Friedman would take an indefinite leave of absence, effective immediately.
The restaurant group’s partner and star chef April Bloomfield denied turning a blind eye to prior complaints about Friedman.
“In the two matters involving uninvited approaches that were brought to my attention over the years, I immediately referred both to our outside labor counsel and they were addressed internally,” she told The Times.
“I have spoken to Ken about professional boundaries and relied on him to uphold our policies. Nonetheless I feel we have let down our employees and for that I sincerely apologize,” she said.
Batali, meanwhile, took a leave of absence from his restaurant empire and cooking show “The Chew” on Monday after a report on the food news website Eater New York included four women accusing him of inappropriate touching.
Batali apologized in a statement, saying “much of the behavior described does, in fact, match up with ways I have acted.”
Article via: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/ken-friedman-rape-room-famed-spotted-pig-restaurant-article-1.3694456
Music Mogul Russell Simmons Is Accused of Rape by 3 Women
Mr. Simmons, a powerful gatekeeper in the entertainment and media worlds, damaged careers and
self-confidence with his pattern of sexual assault and harassment, the women say.
In 1995, Drew Dixon was working her dream job as an executive at Def Jam Recordings, helping to oversee a chart-topping album and a ubiquitous single by Method Man and Mary J. Blige. But as her star rose, Ms. Dixon, then 24, was spiraling into depression, she said, because of prolonged and aggressive sexual harassment by her direct supervisor, Russell Simmons, the rap mogul and co-founder of the label.
On work calls, he would talk graphically about how she aroused him. At a staff meeting, he asked her to sit on his lap. He regularly exposed his erect penis to her. Late that year, Mr. Simmons raped her in his downtown Manhattan apartment, Ms. Dixon said. She quit Def Jam soon after.
“I was broken,” she said.
In recent interviews, four women spoke on the record about a pattern of violent sexual behavior by Mr. Simmons, disclosing incidents from 1988 to 2014. Three of the women say that he raped them.
In each case, numerous friends and associates said they were told of the incidents at the time. The women said they were inspired to come forward in the aftermath of the accusations against Harvey Weinstein, as victims’ stories have been newly elevated and more often believed.
Told in detail about the rape accusations and other misconduct, Mr. Simmons, 60, said in a statement: “I vehemently deny all these allegations. These horrific accusations have shocked me to my core and all of my relations have been consensual.”
He added: “I have enormous respect for the women’s movement worldwide and their struggle for respect, dignity, equality and power.”
[Read Russell Simmons’s Complete Statement]
Last month, Mr. Simmons — a forefather of hip-hop who went on to great success in fashion, media and more — apologized for being “thoughtless and insensitive” and announced he was stepping down from his companies after the screenwriter Jenny Lumet became the second woman to publicly accuse him of sexual assault at the time.
“I have re-dedicated myself to spiritual learning, healing and working on behalf of the communities to which I have devoted my life,” he said in his statement on Wednesday. “I have accepted that I can and should get dirt on my sleeves if it means witnessing the birth of a new consciousness about women.
“What I will not accept is responsibility for what I have not done. I have conducted my life with a message of peace and love. Although I have been candid about how I have lived in books and interviews detailing my flaws, I will relentlessly fight against any untruthful character assassination that paints me as a man of violence.”
The most powerful men and companies in popular music have thus far gone largely unscathed in the national reckoning over sexual abuse. A major reason: Sex and debauchery are built into the music industry, where the boundaries between work and play blur in late nights at clubs and studios, and many women have scant power or incentive to complain about being mistreated.
These women still face powerful industry gatekeepers like Mr. Simmons, whose pedigree and ability to make or break careers allowed his abusive behavior to go unchallenged for decades, his accusers contend. “Russell was like the king of hip-hop,” Ms. Dixon said.
She said she was later harassed by another boss, L.A. Reid, the music legend known for his work with TLC and Mariah Carey, driving her from a business where women had little autonomy. In a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Reid did not address the specific claims but apologized if his words were “misinterpreted.”
Black women, especially, felt powerless against Mr. Simmons and his cohort in the small world of urban music, with several saying that misconduct against them could go unchecked because their place in the industry was so tenuous. They feared being ostracized, or worse.
Three of the women now accusing Mr. Simmons were pursuing careers in the music industry that they said were disrupted or derailed in part by their experiences with him.
“I didn’t sing for almost a year,” said Tina Baker, a performer who said Mr. Simmons raped her in the early ’90s, when he was her manager. “The second he agreed to work with me, my budget increased, the label was paying more attention to me,” Ms. Baker recalled. But after the assault, she said, “I went into oblivion.”
‘He Pushed Me on the Bed’
First known as a hyperactive party promoter turned manager from Queens who helped boost Run-DMC, Mr. Simmons was among the first to view hip-hop as a big business and cultural force. In 1983, with the producer Rick Rubin, he made Def Jam the defining rap label of its era, with hits by the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J and Public Enemy.
Even after Mr. Simmons sold his remaining stake in Def Jam for a reported $100 million in 1999, he served as an ambassador for hip-hop through comedy (“Def Comedy Jam”), clothing (Phat Farm) and activism. Today, his company Rush Communications oversees an array of businesses and nonprofits, including the politically minded media company Global Grind.
In 1987, Toni Sallie, a music journalist for the trade magazine Black Radio Exclusive, met Mr. Simmons while on assignment. She found him to be a charming, if gruff, playboy. They ended up going on a few dates before Ms. Sallie, then 28, decided they were not a match.
But the two remained cordial, Ms. Sallie said, and in the fall of 1988, Mr. Simmons invited her to his Manhattan apartment for a party he said he was hosting for his girlfriend. When Ms. Sallie arrived, the place was empty except for Mr. Simmons, she recalled. Saying he wanted to show her the apartment, Mr. Simmons led her to his bedroom.
“He pushed me on the bed and jumped on top of me, and physically attacked me,” she said. “We were fighting. I said no.” He raped her, she said. Two friends, Sheila Brody and Arlene Hirschkowitz, and a colleague confirmed that Ms. Sallie told them about the assault around the time it happened.
Through his lawyer, Brad D. Rose, Mr. Simmons acknowledged that he dated Ms. Sallie but denied any nonconsensual sex.
Ms. Sallie said she was too afraid to report the assault: “If I went to the police, I didn’t know how that would turn out.”
She also worried about her burgeoning career. “You have to understand, I was very much in a man’s game,” Ms. Sallie said. “Black women were just starting to break into the field.”
About a year later, at a music conference in South Florida, Ms. Sallie, who was then working for Warner Bros. Records, said she encountered Mr. Simmons in a hotel lobby. When he tried to lead her to a dark beach, she resisted and he attacked her, grabbing her by the hair, she said, and even chasing her into the women’s restroom before she escaped to her room, where she barricaded the door. (“At no time did Mr. Simmons conduct himself inappropriately,” Mr. Rose said.)
To this day, Ms. Sallie said, “I don’t feel comfortable in a room full of men.”
Music executives she told about the hotel incident brushed it off, she added. “I felt alone for 29 years,” she said, “like nobody would listen to me.”
Following the reports of alleged misconduct by Mr. Simmons in November, Ms. Sallie said she contacted the Manhattan district attorney’s office to accuse him.
A law enforcement official confirmed that a woman contacted the district attorney’s office to report an incident from 1988 and added that a different anonymous woman had recently reported an incident from 1991. The official said the incidents had occurred so long ago that the statute of limitations had lapsed and the crimes had not been prosecuted. There are no details about the woman from the 1991 incident.
But the official said the women had been referred to the New York Police Department’s Special Victims squad so that there would be a record of their complaints if more recent allegations were to emerge.
‘I Shut My Eyes and Waited for It to End’
Ms. Baker, the singer, thought Mr. Simmons could elevate her career as her new manager. She had performed as a backup vocalist for Madonna and Bruce Springsteen, and, as Tina B, released pop and dance records in the 1980s.
One night in late 1990 or early 1991, she ran into Mr. Simmons at a club, and he invited her back to his apartment to discuss her career. “I didn’t think anything of going,” Ms. Baker said, having been there many times without incident.
This time, though, “it all got really ugly, pretty fast,” Ms. Baker said. As soon as they entered, Mr. Simmons started pouring drinks and trying to kiss her, leading to a scuffle, she said. She recalled “him on top of me, pushing me down and him saying, ‘Don’t fight me,’” Ms. Baker said. She was pinned on the bed. “I did nothing, I shut my eyes and waited for it to end.”
She cried the whole way home, she said. In interviews and email, her ex-husband, Arthur Baker, a music producer; her psychologist, Dr. Robin Goldberg; another therapist; and a former roommate all confirmed that she told them she was raped.
Mr. Simmons, through his lawyer, said he had “no recollection of ever having any sexual relations with Ms. Baker.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/13/arts/music/russell-simmons-rape.html
Salma Hayek Says Harvey Weinstein Threatened To ‘Kill’ Her
The actress reveals in an op-ed that Weinstein’s demands sent her into a “crying and convulsing” breakdown.
Actress Salma Hayek has come forward with a horrifying and searing account of her experiences with disgraced film executive Harvey Weinstein, who she said harassed her with sexual demands and furiously threatened: “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t.”
Hayek, in a New York Times op-ed headlined “Harvey Weinstein Is My Monster Too,” published Wednesday, revealed how she opened the door to the then-Hollywood kingpin during the making of her 2002 film, “Frida,” her passion project about the life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. Her yes to the movie deal, she wrote, quickly led to having to tell Weinstein no.
“No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with. No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman. No, no, no, no, no,” she wrote.
When sweet talk and persistence failed him, Hayek said Weinstein resorted to “Machiavellian rage.” Once, she wrote, “in an attack of fury, he said the terrifying words, ‘I will kill you, don’t think I can’t.’”
She also described a “nervous breakdown” she had when Weinstein forced her into a full-frontal nudity sex scene with another woman. Hayek said her “body wouldn’t stop crying and convulsing.”
“I started throwing up while a set frozen still waited to shoot,” she wrote. “I had to take a tranquilizer, which eventually stopped the crying but made the vomiting worse. As you can imagine, this was not sexy, but it was the only way I could get through the scene.”
In a statement to BuzzFeed’s Kate Aurthur, a spokesperson for Weinstein said the producer denied “all of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma.” The rep also said that other investors preferred that Jennifer Lopez, “who at the time was a bigger star,” play Frida but that Weinstein overruled them and backed Hayek as the lead.
“Mr. Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for filming,” the statement added.
Article via: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/salma-hayek-harvey-weinstein_us_5a316004e4b091ca2684bfb2
ROMAN POLANSKI CALLS NEW SEXUAL ASSAULT CLAIM BS But LAPD Launches Investigation
Roman Polanksi is sharing information with LAPD detectives who’ve opened a new investigation into an allegation he sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl back in 1975.
LAPD just announced the investigation into claims made by Marianne Barnard. She recently filed a police report about the alleged assault during a photo shoot. Barnard claims Polanski was directing the shoot, which initially involved her mother, but claims she was eventually left alone with him — and that’s when he allegedly attacked her.
Marianne hinted her mother might have been paid off to leave.
Polanski says Barnard’s claim is bogus, and his attorney Harlan Braun tells TMZ … they hired their own private investigators to look into the allegation. Braun says Marianne’s mother refused to talk to their investigators, and they’ve turned over their findings to LAPD.
LAPD acknowledges the statute of limitations have long since run for Polanski to be charged, but says it’s investigating because any evidence collected could help in other cases.
Article via: http://www.tmz.com/2017/12/12/roman-polanski-sexual-assault-new-investigation-10-year-old-girl/
Rose McGowan, Asia Argento Call Out Alyssa Milano for Wishing Harvey Weinstein’s Wife Well on ‘Today’
Milano calls Georgina Chapman “an amazing woman,” which apparently makes McGowan “want to vomit.”
Rose McGowan, Jawbreaker actress, and Asia Argento, actress, both took to Twitter Friday to slam Alyssa Milano’s, Melrose Place actress,”Today” interview earlier this week when the TIME Person of the Year was revealed.
While Milano has been considered a huge ally in the #MeToo movement sweeping the country, resulting in many powerful men being fired or resigning from positions due to sexual misconduct allegations, McGowan and Argento were not pleased with Milano’s comments about Georgina Chapman. The designer is married to Harvey Weinstein, a movie mogul McGowan and Argento say raped them in separate incidents. Chapman left Weinstein after the flood of sexual assault allegations against him came to light.
Argento simply noted that “Milano is no bueno” Friday morning, while McGowan seemingly expressed that her former “Charmed” co-star made her sick.
“You make me want to vomit. You actually gave me a body flashback. Well done, fake one,” McGowan commented, while retweeting an article about Milano’s comments.
“Alyssa, maybe you and Georgina can call up Camille Cosby,” she added, referring to Bill Cosby’s wife, who stood by the disgraced comedian even after dozens of women came forward with disturbing sexual assault allegations.
Milano gave the “Today” show’s Megyn Kelly an update on Chapman, whom she became friends with five years ago on the set of the Weinstein-produced reality show “Project Runway All Stars.”
Milano said Chapman was “very sad,” and added, “This is not easy for her, but I have no doubt that not only will she come out on the other side of this, but she deserves to.”
“She’s an amazing woman, and I think her priority right now is focusing on how to raise those two children to the best of her capacity given the situation,” Milano said.
In the lengthy statement, Weinstein owned up to some of his bad behavior, though his attorney also said “he denies many of the accusations as patently false.”
Article via: http://toofab.com/2017/12/08/rose-mcgowan-asia-argento-alyssa-milano-today-show-harvey-weinstein-georgina-chapman/
Audio found of Corey Feldman naming alleged sexual predators
California cops just found an audio recording of the 1993 interview in which Corey Feldman has said he identified alleged sexual predators — after police previously claimed the former child actor never named names, according to a report.
The revelation by the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office comes a month after the Los Angeles Police Department ended its probe into the “Stand By Me” star’s allegations of sexual abuse.
Feldman claimed in October that he had provided names of sexual predators in Hollywood to Santa Barbara County police in 1993 during their probe into Michael Jackson’s molestation charges.
The Sheriff’s Office at the time denied having any records of Feldman revealing such information — but now says it has unearthed recordings of the interview.
“In a container which included the original reports from the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office located some detective working copies of audio recordings made during the investigation,” spokeswoman Kelly Hoover told Fox News in a statement.
“A copy of Mr. Feldman’s interview was located. The recording is being turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department. Due to the fact that this case involves the alleged sexual abuse of a child, we are unable to comment further and any documentation or evidence related to this case is exempt from release.”
Feldman, 46, had claimed in a “Today” show interview that he “sat down and I gave them names. They’re on record. They have all this information.”
The actor has launched a campaign to raise $10 million in order to make a movie about sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry.
Feldman’s reps and the LAPD did not immediately respond to calls by Fox News for comment.
Feldman has said he filed a report with the LAPD alleging he was sexually abused as a child in the industry, but the department last month said his allegations are too old to be prosecuted.
“Los Angeles Police Department detectives are committed to protecting victims of sexual assault and will thoroughly investigate any report of a sex-related crime,” police told the LA Times in a statement.
“In the case of Corey Feldman, unfortunately, according to California law, the alleged occurrence is out of statute and robbery-homicide detectives have no other avenues to pursue this case.”
In a 2013 memoir, “Coreyography,” Feldman recounted abuse that he and late actor Corey Haim allegedly suffered as young performers — but he did not provide names.
During a recent appearance on “The Dr. Oz Show,” he identified one man he alleged had sexually molested him as Alphy Hoffman, owner of an underage club that was popular among Hollywood’s top teen stars.
During a prior appearance on the show, he named another of his alleged abusers as Jon Grissom, who had bit roles in some Feldman-Haim films, including “License To Drive” and “Dream a Little Dream.”
Article here: https://pagesix.com/2017/12/06/audio-found-of-corey-feldman-naming-alleged-sexual-predators/