More Disturbing Allegations Surface Against Dustin Hoffman
Say goodbye to those warm fuzzy feelings you might have had about the star of "Rain Man" and "Tootsie."
More women are coming forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Dustin Hoffman, including one who says he masturbated in front of her when she was only 15.
The two-time Oscar winner, who just received a special tribute at the Gotham Awards, had previously been accused of harassment by Anna Graham Hunter when she was an intern on the set of the 1985 TV movie "Death of a Salesman."
THR shares the horrifying stories of more women (all of whom confided in friends or loved ones at the time) of the actor's inappropriate behavior. Here are some of the lowlights:
- Playwright Cori Thomas shared that in 1980, when she was 16, she was friends with Hoffman's daughters. After dinner one night with the actor and one of his daughters, Hoffman arranged for her mother to pick her up at his hotel after sending his daughter over to her mother's. Thomas says Hoffman disappeared into the bathroom to shower. "He came out naked," she recalls. "He got into the bed. And he asked me to please massage his feet." She said she was disgusted, but was too intimidated to refuse.
- Kathryn Rossetter says that during a 1983 production of 'Death of a Salesman," Hoffman would put his hands up her skirt each night before she went on stage. One night, Hoffman began to "stick his fingers inside me," she told THR.
- Video editor Melissa Kester says Hoffman assaulted her at a recording studio in Malibu in 1985, when she was only 20 and her boyfriend was right outside the sound booth.
- A woman named Pauline (who asked her last name be withheld) says that in 1973 when she was 15, Hoffman, a frequent client at the store where she worked, asked her back to his place on the pretense of showing her his daughter's new puppy. Instead, after she realized no one else was there, he asked her, "Do you want to see something else?" and began masturbating in front of her.
- Another woman recalls an incident at the Watergate Hotel in 1975 when Hoffman was shooting "All the President's Men." After revealing he'd done research into her family, she got creeped out and decided to leave. She claims Hoffman replied, "Go home? You don't think you're getting out of here without having sex, do you?" She says she was coerced into oral sex, then Hoffman handed her a $20 bill to take a cab.
Hoffman has not responded to these new allegations, but he did issue a public apology of sorts to Hunter, in which he said, "I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am."
The actor, who currently stars in "The Meyerowitz Stories," was recently grilled by John Oliver over those allegations during a contentious Q&A at the Tribeca Film Festival.
[Via THR]