Jamie Lee Curtis has expressed her feelings about the recent onslaught of sexual harassment and misconduct cases in Hollywood after actress Eliza Dushku opened up about her own experience with child molestation.
Curtis said that she was shocked and saddened when Dushku told her about her experience a few years ago and admitted that she still feels the same way today. Curtis added that Dushku's story has awakened people from their denial to "a new, horrific reality," which is the abuse of children. She added that what happened to Dushku, who was 12 at that time when the alleged molestation happened, is a terrible thing to learn about and have to reconcile.
"There are industry-wide legal protections for these young performers that have been long-held and hard fought. There are always teachers and advocates and adult family members or surrogates for the children on set and rigid rules that need to be followed. Yet sadly, as with any rules, these are often broken," Curtis wrote in an essay published in the Huffington Post titled Truth and Lies.
Curtis, who portrayed Dushku's mother in the 1994 film True Lies, then spoke against the alleged perpetrator, Joel Kramer, who was then the film's stunt coordinator. The Halloween star expressed her disbelief that the same person whom she trusted her life with during the making of the movie is capable of molesting a child.
"What compounds the difficulty here is that the stunt coordinator in question was literally in charge of our lives, our safety... In my case, I was suspended under a helicopter by a wire, holding onto the hand of the man who is now being accused of abuse," Curtis added.
Curtis closed her essay with the hope that the truth will set people free and awaken them to the sexual abuse that happens in the workplace. She hoped that this freedom would bring about a swift and consistent response so that no one would have to wait 25 years for their truth to be heard.
On Saturday, Jan. 13, Dushku wrote about her personal experience with child molestation on her Facebook page. She alleged that Kramer coaxed her into his Miami hotel room in the guise of a swim trip at the stunt crew's pool. He also told her parents that he would treat her to her first sushi meal thereafter. However, Kramer stripped naked and rubbed himself on top of her until he climaxed. Dushku added that the stunt coordinator got aroused again when he put her on his lap on the taxi ride home.
Kramer confirmed that he did take Dushku for a swim with the other stunt members and treated her to a sushi meal afterward before he took her home. However, he denied the alleged molestation, calling the allegations as "outright hyperbole and lies."
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