Dear Gossips,
I love Metric’s song Breathing Underwater. The lyrics include a commonly-heard expression:
They were right
When they said
We should never meet our heroes
Dustin Hoffman was a favourite, right? That is until “soft-boiled clitoris”. In a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter published yesterday, Anna Graham Hunter writes about how Dustin Hoffman repeatedly sexually harassed her during production of Death Of A Salesman when she was 17 years old. If you’ve not read it already, please click here. The details are important – and not just the details about all the times he creeped her but also the details she shares about all the times he was nice to her. And how much she liked him. How she vacillated between liking him and hating him. Because power has to first get close enough to cut you. Abusive power often approaches with softness, muting your defenses until it’s too late, and then before you know you’ve been sliced in the side. Then, when you start to bleed, the edges are smoothed over, kindness returns, for as long as it takes for you to forget – and then suddenly the wound is open again. This is the kind of manipulation that ends up f-cking with your head, as Anna Graham Hunter shares in her piece. Did he just do that? Did he just say that? But he was so nice yesterday? Am I the one who’s crazy?
Dustin Hoffman released a statement to THR after Anna’s article went viral:
"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."
OK. But he didn’t even use her name.
It’s Thursday. And so far this week, Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Piven, Brett Ratner, and Dustin Hoffman have been accused of sexual harassment and/or assault. Did I miss anyone? I feel like maybe I’m missing someone. It’s a f-cked up advent calendar that never ends.
Yours in gossip,
Lainey
