Dustin Hoffman Sexual Harassment Allegations Hit Fans Hard
Dustin Hoffman is the latest Hollywood star to be accused of sexual harassment. Hoffman, who turned 80 years old in August, is facing allegations that date back more than 30 years after a former intern, Anna Graham Hunter, wrote a damning essay for the Hollywood Reporter in which she detailed the actor’s inappropriate behavior towards her when she was a 17-year-old intern working on the set of the movie Death of a Salesman. Graham Hunter alleges that Dustin Hoffman sexually harassed her physically and verbally throughout the production of the TV movie and she provides supporting documentation via letters she wrote to her sister at the time.
Like other fallen Hollywood men before him, Dustin Hoffman released a statement apologizing for his behavior, telling THR he has “the utmost respect for women” and that he feels terrible for doing anything that may have put his accuser in “an uncomfortable situation.”
“I am sorry,” Hoffman said. “It is not reflective of who I am.”
Dustin Hoffman joins a list of Hollywood heavy hitters who’ve been accused of sexual harassment, including Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, and director Brett Ratner. But fans are taking the allegations about Dustin Hoffman, the star of beloved films such as The Graduate, Kramer v. Kramer, and Rain Man, especially hard. Many fans took to social media to write that they are sad and disappointed to hear the allegations against Dustin Hoffman. Some fans described Hoffman as their childhood hero and expressed surprise in hearing the allegations against the Hollywood star.
Aw, man. Not Dustin Hoffman.
— April is in Tulum (@ReignOfApril) November 1, 2017
first Kevin Spacey, now Dustin Hoffman. All my old man crushes getting exposed I'm so sad ?
— allison.? (@AlliApplebum) November 2, 2017
This one is really really sad. Many giants will fall now. It's the only way to make things better in the long run. https://t.co/FrodjfdeDc
— rhys handley (@RhysHandley2113) November 1, 2017
Sadly, this isn’t the first time Dustin Hoffman has been accused of inappropriate behavior on a movie set. In fact, Dustin once detailed his own bad behavior in an interview. Jezebel posted a video from The Graduate DVD commentary in which Dustin Hoffman describes his first screen test with Katharine Ross, his co-star in the 1967 movie The Graduate, explaining that he pinched her butt to “help loosen us up.”
“I remember at one point, I pinched very gently Katharine’s right—probably her right buttocks as a way to help loosen us up,” Hoffman revealed. “And I kind of patted her and gave her a little [pinch] and she turned on me and later we became friends, but at that moment, she just whirled on me and said, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me again.’ And suddenly everybody kind of heard it, the crew and wherever, and I just sat there and they didn’t know what was going on. She said, ‘How dare you?!‘ I said, “Sorry, sorry—I was just trying to get us relaxed.”
You can see Dustin Hoffman talking about his way of “loosening up” Katharine Ross in the video below, at the 8:45 mark.
There were also allegations about Dustin Hoffman in Michael Schulman’s biography Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep by. Vanity Fair published an excerpt from the book in which it is alleged that Hoffman once slapped his Kramer vs. Kramer co-star Meryl Streep hard across the cheek, leaving a red mark.
Hoffman also allegedly taunted Streep as a way to get her to become more emotional during key scenes in Kramer vs. Kramer, by talking about her late boyfriend, John Cazale, who had succumbed to lung cancer shortly before they began filming the Oscar-winning 1979 movie. Hoffman reportedly brought up Cazale’s death while filming a courtroom scene and made Streep’s eyes water after he whispered her late boyfriend’s name in her ear.
Are you surprised by the sexual harassment allegations against Dustin Hoffman?
[Featured Image by Antony Jones/Getty Images]
