US actor Jared Leto denies sexual assault accusation after claims in new BBC documentary: ‘In my entire life...’
US actor and singer Jared Leto on Wednesday denied allegations of sexual assault and harassment leveled against him by 10 women in a new documentary
US actor and singer Jared Leto on Wednesday denied allegations of sexual assault and harassment leveled against him by 10 women in a new documentary aired by the BBC. "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life," the 54-year-old actor said in a statement. “These claims are absolutely and categorically false,” he told ABC News on Wednesday. Nine of the 10 women spoke out for the first time in the BBC documentary titled “Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret.” The women said they were victimised by Leto between 2002 and 2016, when he was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54. Also Read | Jared Leto faces criminal sexual conduct allegations from multiple women: Report "This was 25 years ago… he has gotten away with it," one of his alleged victims told the BBC.
Mint has not independently verified the allegations in the BBC report. What were the allegations against Jared Leto? Two of them accused him of sexual assault when they were 17 years old, while another said the actor threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19. A fourth woman recounted receiving multiple sexually explicit phone calls from the actor when she was 16, who allegedly propositioned her for sex. She was subsequently sent a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent her from talking about her relationship with Leto, which the BBC claimed to have seen. However, she refused to sign. Four other women described sexual harassment during phone calls from the lead singer of the rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars.
As per the BBC report, one of the women said she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17. One women reportedly described how she had under-age sex with the star in California when she was 17 - which would be classified as statutory rape. Leto "shrugged off" a conversation about the age of consent being 18 in the US state, she claimed. Another woman said that when she was 14, he instructed a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival after having made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph-signing. Also Read | Anne Hathaway on Mary Magdalene and her gift to Jared Leto The girl's mother confronted Leto, but he repeated the comment, it is alleged.
The actor, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar in 2014 for "Dallas Buyers Club," has faced such accusations before. The BBC claimed to have counted more than 120 separate allegations made online relating to his behaviour towards women, some of them historical. Last year, allegations flared up again when a Los Angeles DJ named Allie Teilz posted on social media saying she had been assaulted by the actor when she was 17, prompting several other women to come forward with similar claims.
The BriefWire