The downfall of Harvey Weinstein ignited the #MeToo movement and paved the way for hundreds of other women and men to make public allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape against powerful and prominent men (and a few women) throughout media and entertainment. Since those heady days in late 2017, #MeToo allegations have most often led to the professional decline and disintegration of those accused, with only a tiny handful — Morgan Freeman, Aziz Ansari, Ryan Seacrest — appearing to emerge with their careers largely intact. As this survey of prominent cases makes clear, however, criminal prosecution and civil litigation of alleged sexual misconduct remains more elusive.
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Ryan Adams
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MusicianThe FBI reportedly opened an investigation into Adams after a New York Times story
in February 2019 alleged that he engaged for two years in texts and video chats — including nudity — with a minor starting when she was 14. Adams denies any inappropriate communication with anyone he knew was underage. -
Mario Batali
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Chef-RestauranteurBatali is due to stand trial in Boston on charges that he groped a woman in one of his restaurants in 2017. The woman is also suing him in civil court. Batali denies the charges. When four other women spoke to Eater in 2017 with similar sexual misconduct allegations, Batali said their accounts “match up” with his past behavior, and that he would take “full responsibility”; he’s since divested from all of his restaurants, as well as Eataly, the Italian supermarket chain.
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Luc Besson
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DirectorIn October, a French judge reopened an investigation into actor Sand Van Roy’s allegation that the director of “Lucy” and “The Fifth Element” raped her in a Paris hotel room, after prosecutors had declined to file charges in February 2019, citing a lack of evidence. Besson denies the allegations.
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David Blaine
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MagicianThe New York Police Dept. announced in April it had launched an investigation
into Blaine after two women filed complaints that he sexually assaulted them. Blaine denied the allegations, and said he would “cooperate with any investigation.” -
Cuba Gooding Jr.
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ActorThe Oscar winner will stand trial in New York in April on charges he groped three women in Manhattan establishments in 2018 and 2019. Prosecutors petitioned to allow 19 other women to testify with similar allegations of groping and forced kissing; the judge admitted two. Gooding has pleaded not guilty.
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Allison Mack
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ActorIn April, Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy charges in connection to her involvement with the sex cult Nxivm, which included her recruiting other women into a sect in which they were branded and forced to have sex with founder Keith Raniere. He was convicted in June of multiple charges, including sex trafficking. Both are awaiting sentencing.
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R. Kelly
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Singer-SongwriterThe multiplatinum music star is in prison without bond while he awaits four separate criminal trials — two in Chicago, one in New York, one in Minnesota — on an array of charges, including sexual abuse and misconduct, many involving minors. The first
trial is scheduled to start on April 27, but new federal charges filed in February — alleging that Kelly sexually abused a minor girl for four years starting in 1997 — could delay that proceeding. Kelly has pleaded not guilty in all cases. -
Kevin Spacey
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Actor-ProducerThe London Metropolitan Police is still investigating allegations made in 2017 and 2018 by six men who maintain that Spacey sexually assaulted them years earlier. The assertions are part of a wave of such allegations against the “House of Cards” star, which began with Anthony Rapp’s claim to BuzzFeed News in October 2017 that Spacey made a sexual advance toward him when Rapp was 14. Prosecutors in Mas-
sachusetts dropped a sexual assault charge against Spacey last year after the plaintiff declined to testify; a civil case regarding the same allegation was dropped, too. A lawsuit alleging Spacey sexually assaulted a massage therapist was dropped after the therapist died. Spacey did not deny Rapp’s claim, but has denied all other allegations of sexual misconduct. -
James Franco
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Actor-DirectorFormer students at Franco’s defunct acting school filed a class action lawsuit in October, alleging that Franco and his business partners “engaged in widespread inappropriate and sexually charged behavior towards female students,” including taping auditions for a “master class” on sex scenes. Franco’s attorney called the
suit “scurrilous.” -
Paul Haggis
Image Credit: Stephen Lovekin/WWD/Shutterstock Civil Dispute
DirectorIn December 2017, publicist Haleigh Breest sued Haggis, alleging that the “Crash” filmmaker raped her in his New York apartment in 2013. In December 2019, an appeals court found that Breest’s allegation, if true, amounts to a gender-based hate crime. Haggis said he had an “at times flirtatious relationship” with Breest, but denied the rape allegation.
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James Levine
Image Credit: Michael Dwyer/AP/Shutterstock Civil Dispute
ComposerLevine and the Metropolitan Opera sued each other in 2018 for roughly $5.8 million each, over the Met’s decision to fire Levine in March 2018 for what the Met characterized as “sexually abusive and harassing conduct.” Levine denied any wrongdoing in connection with the allegations. In August, the two parties settled; terms were not disclosed.
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Danny Masterson
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ActorFour women sued Masterson and the Church of Scientology for allegedly stalking and intimidating them after they claimed in 2016 that Masterson raped or sexually assaulted them in the 2000s. Masterson denies all allegations of misconduct and, through his lawyer, called the harassment lawsuit a “money grab.” The Church of Scientology says the suit is “a sham.”
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Charlie Rose
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AnchorThe former “CBS This Morning” host — who was accused by at least 35 women of serial sexual harassment — is fending off two sexual harassment lawsuits, one brought by his makeup artist of 22 years, the other by three former CBS employees. CBS, also named in the latter suit, settled with the women last year. Rose denies the allegations.
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Tavis Smiley
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BroadcasterSmiley is suing PBS, and PBS is countersuing, over PBS’ cancellation, as reported by Variety, of Smiley’s talk show in late 2017 following multiple misconduct allegations, including that Smiley had sexual relationships with his subordinates. PBS claims Smiley’s actions violated his contract; Smiley called PBS’ actions a “sham investigation … based on arbitrary and esoteric ‘standards and values.’”
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Woody Allen
Image Credit: Kristin Callahan/Ace/Shutterstoc Civil Dispute
DirectorIn February 2019, Allen sued Amazon Studios for $68 million for pulling out of its four-picture deal with him, precipitated by a post-#MeToo reconsideration of Dylan Farrow’s 1992 allegation that Allen, her father, molested her when she was 7 years old. Several actors who’d starred in Allen’s films (Timothée Chalamet, Greta Gerwig, Colin Firth) said they wouldn’t work with him again. In November, Amazon and Allen settled the suit. Allen’s most recent film, “A Rainy Day in New York,” still has no U.S. distribution, nor does his next film, “Rifkin’s Festival.” Allen has always denied his daughter’s allegations.
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Les Moonves
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ExecutiveViacomCBS shareholders are suing the former CBS chairman and CEO, alleging that public statements Moonves made at a Variety conference in November 2017 in the wake of the #MeToo movement — “There’s a lot we’re learning. There’s a lot we didn’t know” — were intentionally misleading, since Moonves was already aware of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct at the network, including against him. Those allegations, from two 2018 New Yorker stories featuring 12 women, led to Moonves’ termination at CBS. Moonves has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex, and declined to comment on the lawsuit.
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Asia Argento
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Actor-DirectorOne of Weinstein’s first on-the-record accusers, Argento was cut off from the #MeToo movement and fired from “X Factor Italy” after The New York Times reported in 2018 that she paid $380,000 to actor Jimmy Bennett to settle his claim she sexually assaulted him when he was 17. Argento initially denied any sexual relationship, then alleged that Bennett “sexually attacked” her.
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Louis CK
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Comedian-Director
After denying for years rumors that he masturbated in front of women without their consent, CK admitted similar accounts by five women in The New York Times in 2017 “are true.” He was dropped by his manager, FX canceled his Emmy-winning series and his feature film “I Love You, Daddy” was never released. He’s on a stand-up comedy tour in the U.S. and Europe.
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Mark Halperin
Image Credit: David Buchan/Variety/Shutterstock Career Impact
JournalistThe “Game Change” co-author was dropped by NBC, MSNBC and Showtime, and his book on the 2016 presidential campaign was canceled, after multiple women accused him in stories from CNN and The Daily Beast of aggressive sexual harassment, largely from his time at ABC News in the 2000s. Halperin denied engaging in nonconsensual sexual contact, but apologized “for the pain and anguish I have caused.” His next book, 2019’s “How to Beat Trump,” sold barely 500 copies in its first week.
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Dustin Hoffman
Image Credit: Nils Jorgensen/Shutterstock Career Impact
ActorIn November and December 2017, Hoffman was accused of sexual misconduct and sexual assault by multiple women in stories that ran in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. After the first allegation, Hoffman apologized for “anything I might have done” that put his accuser “in an uncomfortable situation”; he has either declined to comment on or denied all subsequent allegations. The multiple
Oscar winner has since made only one film, in Italy; this year, he’s set to star opposite Candice Bergen in “As Sick as They Made Us,” the directorial debut of “The Big Bang Theory” actor Mayim Bialik. -
Andrew Kreisberg
Image Credit: David Buchan/Variety/Shutterstoc Career Impact
Producer-ShowrunnerWarner Bros. Television fired Kreisberg as executive producer of The CW’s “The Flash,” “Arrow,” “Supergirl” and “Legends of Tomorrow” after a November 2017 Variety report in which 19 women and men alleged they were subjected to, or witnessed, incidents of sexual harassment by him. Kreisberg denied the allegations.
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John Lasseter
Image Credit: Carlos Osorio/AP/Shutterstock Career Impact
Director – ExecutiveThe Disney and Pixar animation chief announced a leave of absence in November 2017 for “missteps” after a THR story outlined multiple instances of sexual misconduct with subordinates; Lasseter was subsequently fired. In January 2019, he was hired to run Skydance’s animation studio, prompting Emma Thompson to drop out of the studio’s inaugural film, “Luck.”
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Matt Lauer
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AnchorThe popular “Today” host was fired for cause in 2017 for what was at the time undisclosed sexual misconduct; two years later, Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill” revealed the firing stemmed from former NBC employee Brooke Nevils’ allegation that Lauer raped her during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Lauer says the sex was part of a consensual, extramarital affair, and that Nevils’ allegation of rape “is categorically false, ignores the facts and defies common sense.” After Lauer was fired, Variety and the New York Times published multiple allegations against the anchor of sexual harassment and assault from other women, which Lauer also denies.
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Russell Simmons
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ExecutiveThe hip-hop mogul stepped down from his companies in November 2017 after writer Jenny Lumet wrote in THR that he forced her to have sex with him in 1991; Simmons said he recalled their encounter differently, but her “feelings of fear and intimidation are real.” Lumet’s allegations followed Variety and L.A. Times reports alleging Simmons and Brett Ratner engaged in sexual misconduct directed at multiple women, which the two men deny. In December 2017, The New York Times published allegations from three women that Simmons raped them, allegations he denied. Last month, Oprah Winfrey said Simmons pressured her to drop support of “On the Record,” a feature documentary about one of his accusers, Drew Dixon.
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TJ Miller
Image Credit: Clint Spaulding/WWD/Shutterstock Career Impact
ActorMiller had already departed HBO’s “Silicon Valley” when The Daily Beast reported in December 2017 that, while in college in 2001, Miller allegedly choked, punched and sexually assaulted his girlfriend. Miller called the allegations “false.” His subsequent films — “Ready Player One,” “Deadpool 2” and “Underwater” — were shot prior to the report. He’s currently on a U.S. stand-up comedy tour.
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Roy Price
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ExecutivePrice resigned as the head of Amazon Studios in October 2017 after “The Man in the High Castle” executive producer Isa Hackett alleged in THR that Price repeatedly sexually harassed her at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2015, including telling her, “You will love my dick.” Price has declined to comment.
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Brett Ratner
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Director – ProducerWarner Bros. severed ties with Ratner after two Los Angeles Times reports in 2017 in which multiple women, including actors Natasha Henstridge and Olivia Munn, accused the filmmaker of sexual harassment and misconduct. In 2018, Ratner dropped a libel suit against another accuser. Ratner has denied all allegations of misconduct; he has yet to produce or direct another film.
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Bryan Singer
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DirectorAfter a January 2019 story in The Atlantic alleged Singer sexually
assaulted multiple underage boys in the late 1990s, Singer was replaced as the director
of “Red Sonja.” (Singer was fired during production of the subsequently Oscar-winning film “Bohemian Rhapsody” for unrelated issues.) He has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct. -
Jeffrey Tambor
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ActorTambor was fired from Amazon’s “Transparent” in February 2018 after two trans women alleged in THR that the actor sexually harassed them on the set, which Tambor denied while expressing regret “if any action of mine was ever misinterpreted.” Tambor’s upcoming film, the Disney Plus feature film “Magic Camp,” was shot prior to the allegations.
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Kevin Tsujihara
Image Credit: Ryan Miller/Shutterstock Career Impact
ExecutiveTsujihara resigned as chair-man and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment after a THR story revealed he pushed to land work for an actor, Charlotte Kirk, with whom he was having an extramarital affair. Tsujihara’s personal attorney said the executive had “no direct role” in getting Kirk hired. She did appear in “How to Be Single” and “Ocean’s 8.”