Tag: rape allegations
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