Brett Ratner, Dustin Hoffman the latest to be accused of sexual harassment, misconduct
Natasha Henstridge, Olivia Munn among actresses coming forward
Film director Brett Ratner and actor Dustin Hoffman are the latest Hollywood figures to be the subject of sexual harassment allegations.
Six women, including actresses Natasha Henstridge and Olivia Munn, have accused Ratner of sexual harassment or misconduct, according to a Los Angeles Times report.
Martin Singer issued a statement Wednesday in which he said the director "vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations" and is "confident that his name will be cleared once the current media frenzy dies down and people can objectively evaluate the nature of these claims."
In the Times article, Canadian actress Henstridge accuses the high-profile Hollywood director and producer of forcing her to perform oral sex on him at his New York apartment in the early 1990s when she was a 19-year-old model and had attended a gathering there with friends.
Munn said that while visiting the set of Ratner's After the Sunset in 2004, he masturbated in front of her in his trailer. Munn had previously described the incident, without naming Ratner, in a 2010 collection of essays.
The L.A. Times report also describes other encounters where Ratner aggressively pursued actresses, sometimes following them into a bathroom.
An extra on Rush Hour 2 named Eri Sasaki said Ratner suggested he would give her a line in the film if she slept with him.
Police weren't contacted about any of the incidents, nor did they result in financial settlements.
Ratner directed the Rush Hour film series, Red Dragon, X-Men: The Last Stand and Tower Heist. More recently, his production company RatPac Entertainment has a $450-million US film co-financing pact with Warner Bros. films, which includes this year's hit Wonder Woman, and rents office space on its lot.
"We are aware of the allegations in the LA Times and are reviewing the situation," a Warner Bros. spokesperson said.
"We are deeply troubled to learn about the accusations against Brett Ratner. We find this kind of behaviour completely unacceptable," the company wrote in a statement.
Ratner is one of the latest Hollywood figures to be accused of sexual harassment since the New York Times published an exposé last month about decades of harassment allegations against film mogul Harvey Weinstein.
Dustin Hoffman apologizes
The allegation about Hoffman dates back 32 years and was levelled by a woman who says the Oscar-winner sexually harassed her in 1985 when she was a 17-year-old intern.
Writer Anna Graham Hunter alleges in a Wednesday column in the Hollywood Reporter that the 80-year-old actor groped her on the set of the TV movie Death of a Salesman.
"He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me," Hunter wrote in her column.
Hoffman apologized in a statement to the magazine.
"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," he wrote.
In recent weeks, a number of allegations of sexual harassment and assault have been made against prominent Hollywood men including producer Harvey Weinstein, and actors Kevin Spacey and Jeremy Piven.