Six Women Accuse Brett Ratner of Sexual Misconduct

Six different women have come forward with details of sexual misconduct allegedly committed by director and producer Brett Ratner, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

Famed actress and author Olivia Munn says that one of her first experiences in Hollywood was walking into Ratner’s trailer to deliver food. She found the director “furiously masturbating” and he urged her to stay. “Before I literally could even figure out where to escape or where to look, he ejaculated,” Munn recalled. She wrote about this (redacting his name) in her book Suck it, Wonder Woman and Ratner later admitted that it was him, though he denied masturbating in front of her. He also claimed he “banged her a few times,” a statement he later admitted was untrue.

Multiple extras on the set of Rush Hour 2 told the L.A. Times that Ratner offered speaking roles to women who would show him their breasts, touch his penis or “go into the bathroom with him.” Jorina King was one of these women, as was Eri Sasaki. Sasaki said Ratner touched her midriff (bare, due to her costume as an extra) and asked her to accompany him to the bathroom. Despite her saying no, he asked the same question just a day or two later.

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Actress Natasha Henstridge says that she fell asleep on a couch at a party in the early 1990s. When she woke up, she was alone with Ratner. The director then blocked the exit, began touching himself and “physically forced” her to perform oral sex. Henstridge said that when the two would meet by chance later in her career, he acted like she was a friend from the old days.

Actress Katharine Towne recalls Ratner following her into a bathroom at a party. She says he was persistent and fixated on the idea of sleeping with her. After giving him her number to placate him, she says his assistant consistently called her over the next six months trying to set up a dinner date.

Of course, Ratner has his share of supporters. The L.A. Times mentions that his former assistants all vouch for his conduct, and while Gal Gadot reportedly declined to present an award to Ratner (citing a scheduling conflict), Patty Jenkins stepped in and spoke highly of him. Ratner’s lawyer, Martin Singer, wrote a ten-page letter to The New York Times that seemed to mostly exist so that he could call each individual claim of harassment “ridiculous” or “absurd.” Singer points out that none of these women ever filed a complaint or went to the police about the matter, despite that behavior being consistent with that of most victims of sexual misconduct. Singer also tried to spin Ratner repeatedly harassing Towne for a date as just normal flirting.

The L.A. Times points out that Ratner counts widely alleged sexual predators James Toback (now under investigation by the Beverly Hills Police Department) and Roman Polanski among his “closest friends.”