Dustin Hoffman has found himself among the scores of other Hollywood elite who have been accused of sexual misconduct. While the two-time Oscar winner has tried to minimize the seriousness of his actions on set with an apology and claims that he has the “utmost respect for women,” he still has five accusers, two of which say they were just teenagers when they said that Hoffman was highly inappropriate with them.
On Monday night, Anna Graham Hunter, Cori Thomas, and Kathryn Rossetter spoke out about their experiences with Dustin Hoffman and how he affected them in an emotional interview with Cynthia McFadden on NBC Nightly News.
Hunter was the first to call out Dustin Hoffman for sexual misconduct. She told her story to The Hollywood Reporter back in November. Hunter’s experience with Hoffman happened on the set of Death of a Salesman when she was working as a production assistant. Hunter was just 17-years-old at the time and recounted that the legendary actor often made highly inappropriate and sexual comments to her and others working on the set. He seemed to revel in their embarrassment at his off-color jokes and demands for foot rubs.
Even more shocking is the story of Cori Thomas. She was a childhood friend of Hoffman’s daughter, Karina. Cori said that when she was just 16-years-old, the actor exposed himself to her in his hotel room. Thomas said that Dustin Hoffman took her and his daughter out to dinner one night in 1980 and afterward, Hoffman sent his daughter on home and had her friend stay back at his hotel until her mother could come get her. While she was there, Hoffman decided to shower and after doing so, dropped his towel in front of her and exposed himself.
My interview tonight @NBCNightlyNews with three women who accuse Dustin Hoffman of inappropriate sexual behavior @corithyme
@nykass @annaghunter pic.twitter.com/h64C4qDTUy
— Cynthia McFadden (@CynthiaMcFadden) December 18, 2017
“I just froze. I’d never seen a man naked in my life, at that point. I was kind of an awkward young girl, I had never kissed anyone,” she recounted. “He was being suggestive. He kept saying, ‘You know I’m naked.’”
Then there was Kathryn Rossetter, who starred on Broadway with Dustin Hoffman in Death of a Salesman. Rossetter’s claims were possibly even more shocking than the other two women and show a pattern of the alleged behavior that women who worked with and dealt with Hoffman on a personal level are complaining about.
Rossetter has claimed that while working on Broadway with Hoffman, he would often grope her backstage before pivotal scenes. She even made a shocking claim that one night before her big scene, Dustin Hoffman tried to penetrate her with his fingers. When talked about how his treatment affected her, she broke down in tears.
“It eroded my self-confidence and my dignity,” Rossetter said. “It was humiliating and demeaning… He robbed me of the joy of that experience.”
“People go, ‘How is it to work with Dustin?’” Rossetter continued. “And I tell the half-truth, which is, as an actor working with him, I owe him everything. I learned so much. And then I would stop and there would always be a knot in my stomach about what the real truth was, which is he was abusive and he was a bully.”
When asked why she didn’t say something about Hoffman’s treatment, Rossetter echoed what so many other sexual misconduct accusers have said while speaking out against so many famous men. “I was told to suck it up. He was the most famous actor in the world, it was the top of his career. I was a nobody. Nobody was going to believe me.”