Director James Toback is in the clear after the L.A. County District Attorney rejected all 5 cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct … TMZ has learned. Toback was accused by dozens of women of sexual misdeeds, ranging from sexual…
Showing posts with label Toback. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toback. Show all posts
Monday, April 9, 2018
Thursday, January 18, 2018
Natasha Leggero Claims James Toback Sexually Harassed Her 20 Years Ago
Comedian Natasha Leggero says she is among the nearly 400 women director James Toback sexually harassed … and her alleged incident might be the most bizarre and creepy yet. Natasha was on ”Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Wednesday when…
Friday, January 12, 2018
Weinstein, Toback and Ratner Cases Almost Ready for D.A. Review
LAPD detectives will be sitting down with the L.A. County District Attorney next month to go over a huge number of files involving alleged sexual misconduct … and there are 3 famous people who will be at the top of the pile based on the number of…
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
Harvey Weinstein and James Toback Under Investigation in Beverly Hills
Another city is officially probing Harvey Weinstein — Beverly Hills PD says it’s now looking into multiple complaints against him … as well as director James Toback. BHPD says they recently got the complaints and launched an investigation against…
Saturday, October 28, 2017
James Toback Goes on Vicious, Disgusting Rant Against Sexual Assault Accusers
Remember this time last week when most of us weren’t even aware of the existence of James Toback?
What a wonderful time that was.
Yes, that ignorance sure was bliss, but since early last week, we’ve heard story after story about Toback, the man behind films like Two Girls and a Guy, The Pick-Up Artist, and Bugsy.
And those stories were just completely horrific.
At this point, over 300 women in the industry, including very famous actresses like Rachel McAdams and Selma Blair, have come forward with claims that Toback sexually assaulted them, or attempted to assault them.
Just think about that for a moment: over 300 women, all with a story to tell about this guy.
Selma Blair said that she met with Toback when her career was just starting to take off, and that he requested she come to his hotel room to discuss a possible role in one of his movies, Harvard Man.
After a bit of conversation, he asked her to perform a monologue naked, and, being intimidated and scared, she agreed. He touched himself while she did the monologue, then asked her to sleep with him.
She refused and tried to leave the room, but he blocked her way and threatened her until she allowed him to hump her leg — something he greatly enjoys doing, based on the other women’s stories.
Actresses Ambika Leigh and Sari Kamin, two of the first people to come forward with their accusations, claimed that he set up professional meetings with them that soon turned sexual and that ended with him humping their legs.
So how is Toback dealing with all this? Is he simply laying low, hoping everything blows over? Did he pull a Harvey Weinstein and fly off to a rehab/resort for a week?
Nope, it turns out that he’s just going the “be nasty and cruel in a vulgar public statement” route.
In an interview published by Rolling Stone, Toback was asked about the recent allegations during a phone call, and he denied everything in spectacular fashion.
“Lemme be really clear about this,” he said. “I don’t want to get a pat on the back, but I’ve struggled seriously to make movies with very little money, that I write, that I direct, that mean my life to me.”
“The idea that I would offer a part to anyone for any other reason than that he or she was gonna be the best of anyone I could find is so disgusting to me,” he continued.
“And anyone who says it is a lying c–ksucker or c–t or both. Can I be any clearer than that? … Anyone who says that, I just want to spit in his or her f-cking face.”
“By the way,” he added, “no one who’s ever worked with me would ever say anything like that. No one.”
Then he bizarrely mentioned that Sienna Miller, the star of his latest movie, was sitting right next to him. She spoke with the reporter for moment in an off-the-record conversation — no public defense from her — then Toback took back the phone.
“No, seriously, I find it offensive and insulting and disgusting, that people …” he trailed off.
“Because it’s the opposite of the way I work. I don’t give my best friends parts unless they deserve them. Ever.”
Which is a weird thing to say, because that’s not exactly what he’s being accused of. These hundreds of women didn’t all go on to star in his movies, you know?
The interviewer pointed that out, that he’s mostly being accused of discussing work with women before getting them in a private setting and humping their legs.
Toback responded to that by asking the reporter to give him one name, and he did — Ambika Leigh’s name.
He said that Ambika’s story “is a total lie,” and that he never even heard of her before, “and believe me, I would remember it, because it’s a very unusual name.”
“This is just too stupid,” he went on. “I mean, these are people I don’t know, and it’s things I never would have done. And it’s just not worth talking about. It’s idiotic.”
He said that these women “hear each other. And they gang up … It’s all, you know, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too.”
“Anyway, it’s too stupid to waste time on. It really is. It doesn’t have anything to do with my life in any way. It never has. I work seriously with complete integrity.”
He went on to call the allegations “too stupid to dignify,” “pathetic lies,” and “too f-cking embarrassing and idiotic.”
Another interesting layer to this conversation? The reporter’s own wife had a story about Toback — when she was in high school, he tried to discuss a movie with her before turning the conversation to her pubic hair.
It’s just wild, because it’s like this jackass sincerely believes that we’ll buy all this, that hundreds of women just decided to “gang up” and make up tales about how he humped their legs.
The vast majority of the people working in Hollywood don’t deal with this kind of thing.
There’s the occasional Harvey Weinstein or Bill Cosby, but it’s not normal for this many people to accuse you of these very specific things if there’s no truth at all in those accusations.
Also, if your response to many, many people accusing you of doing horrific things is to call them “lying c–ksuckers and c–ts” … is there any hope left at all for humanity?
Friday, October 27, 2017
Selma Blair & Rachel McAdams Accuse James Toback of Sexual Harassment
Just a few days ago, 38 women came forward and accused director James Toback of sexual misconduct. 38 is an alarmingly high number.
The number of accusers has now grown to the hundreds.
Among Toback’s accusers are Rachel McAdams and Selma Blair, who are bravely sharing their harrowing stories.
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal, more and more people in Hollywood are sharing their #MeToo stories and feeling brave enough to speak up, and shatter the culture of silence.
One of the men accused of perpetrating a pattern of sexual misconduct in the entertainment industry is an Oscar-nominated director.
According to the initial allegations, James Toback uses similar tactics on different women.
He allegedly approaches young women if they aren’t sent to him and promises to boost their careers, citing what he did for Robert Downey Jr.
Once alone in a place like a hotel room, he reportedly becomes inappropriate, all under the guise of it just being part of the entertainment business.
He would reportedly try things like humping women’s legs, masturbating in front of them, and ask them unacceptable questions.
(In particular, based upon the accusations, he seems obsessed with talking about masturbation and fixated on women’s pubic hair)
The issue, of course, is that none of this was consensual.
These aren’t accusations of weird dates, these are accusations that he used the false pretense of work-related meetings to lure women to him, where he would then ambush them and coerce them — successfully or not — into playing their role in his twisted fantasies.
All of that is enough to turn your stomach, but there’s more.
As we said, hundreds of women have now reached out to say that they had experiences like those described with James Tomack.
And two big-name actresses, Rachel McAdams and Selma Blair, are sharing their stories with Vanity Fair.
Selma Blair says that she met with him to discuss Harvard Man, at a time when Selma Blair had filmed her famous role in Cruel Intentions but the film had not yet been released.
After Toback apparently refused to leave his hotel room to meet her in the restaurant, Selma went up to meet him. She describes how uncomfortable she became.
“He said, ‘Where are your parents?’ I was thinking, ‘Why is he trying to make me feel so uncomfortable?’ But I realize now he was really trying to figure out what support system I had. I answered him. My mother was in Michigan, and I had an estranged relationship with my father.”
Meaning no family support network in town to speak of.
“James said, ‘You know, I could have him killed.’ He sat back in his chair and said really confidently, ‘I do it all the time. I know people."”
That’s scary … and it will come up again.
“It was about 40 minutes in and he said, ‘Will you trust me? I cannot continue to work with you unless you trust me.’ He said, ‘I need you to take your clothes off. I need you to do this monologue naked."”
As ridiculous as that sounds, Selma was thoroughly intimidated at this point and ended up caving to his request. She says that then, of course, he started rubbing himself through his clothes … and asking if she would have sex with him.
She declined, but he didn’t seem impressed by her refusal.
“I felt trapped. I did not know how to get out and save face and not make a scene. Was I imagining it? He dropped some names [of actresses] that he did some really dark sexual things with.”
And there was an implied threat in that.
“These felt like lies and dark gossip and that he would add my name to the list. I went to leave and he got up and blocked the door. He said, ‘You have to do this for me. You cannot leave until I have release."”
“He said, ‘It’s O.K. I can come in my pants. I have to rub up against your leg. You have to pinch my nipples. And you have to look into my eyes.’ I thought, ‘Well, if I can get out of here without being raped …"”
No one should ever be put into this position.
“He walked me back to the bed. He sat me down. He got on his knees. And he continued to press so hard against my leg. He was greasy and I had to look into those big brown eyes.”
Gross.
“I tried to look away, but he would hold my face. So I was forced to look into his eyes. And I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil. His energy was so sinister.”
After that, Selma says, he reminded her that he could supposedly have people killed, and admonished her to keep quiet.
That didn’t stop Selma from telling her manager that Toback was “vile,” and warning her to note send any women to him again. But she didn’t tell the whole story, she says, to anyone except for two people.
Until now.
Rachel McAdams also shared her horror story in Vanity Fair.
She was a 21-year-old theater student at the time, and she was also auditioning for Harvard Man.
At the time, Rachel McAdams had her first TV job to film early the next day, but she eventually agreed to meet him that night. It could, after all, end up being her big break.
(Remember, this is before Mean Girls or The Notebook)
“Pretty quickly the conversation turned quite sexual and he said, ‘You know, I just have to tell you. I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition."”
That … is not appropriate in a workplace environment. And yes, an audition or anything audition-related is very much a workplace environment.
Also … gross, dude.
Rachel says that he then had her read to him a number of seemingly unrelated passages — like reviews about his work.
(There’s no telling if he wanted to make sure that she was impressed, or if he … ugh, gets off on that)
“Then he went to the bathroom and left me with some literature to read about him. When he came back he said, ‘I just jerked off in the bathroom thinking about you. Will you show me your pubic hair?’ I said no.”
It sounds like, for whatever reason, Toback was less aggressive with her than he is accused of having been with Selma Blair.
“Eventually, I just excused myself. I can’t remember how long I was there. I felt like I was there forever. This has been such a source of shame for me — that I didn’t have the wherewithal to get up and leave.”
Countless other women didn’t. Few would, in that situation. Society trains us to be polite, innate survival instincts tell us to play along, and the man’s very real power to boost careers added even more complications.
“I kept thinking, ‘This is going to become normal any minute now. This is going to all make sense. This is all above board somehow.’ Eventually I just realized that it wasn’t.”
And Rachel acknowledges how fortunate she was.
“I was very lucky that I left and he didn’t actually physically assault me in any way.”
Even so, no one should have to endure that.
With hundreds of accusers having come forward, there’s no telling how many are keeping silent.
After all, reading a story or a woman who got away or said “no” enough times might actually be discouraging to a woman who did not, rather than liberating.
But it’s so important that women — and men — who have faced this kind of unacceptable sexual harassment and sexual assault continue to come forward so that predators can be dragged out into the light of day.
There can be healthy relationships between people who work in the entertainment, whether they’re casual or romantic. They might even be for personal gain.
They must always be truly consensual, however. Making someone feel cornered or trapped or afraid is a monstrous tactic.
If someone fears for their safety or their career if they say “no,” then it’s not consent.
And, basically, no one should ever do any of the thing that James Toback is accused of having done. Please.
Monday, October 23, 2017
James Toback: 38 Women Accuse Director of Sexual Misconduct
James Toback, an Academy Award-nominated director/writer, has been accused of sexual harassment by 38 different women.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Toback would approach his alleged victims in all sorts of different settings, typically offering up his resume early on in order to impress them.
“In a hotel room, a movie trailer, a public park, meetings framed as interviews or auditions quickly turned sexual,” writes the publication.
It went on to detail how Toback would brag about his Oscar nomination (for the Warren Beatty film Bugsy) and how he claimed to have “invented” Robert Downey Jr. by directing him in a trio of films.
These disturbing allegations come on the heels of producer Harvey Weinstein also being accused of sexual harassment, misconduct and assault.
Referring to Toback, The Los Angeles Times writes:
“He prowled the streets of Manhattan looking for attractive young women, usually in their early 20s, sometimes college students, on occasion a high schooler.
“He approached them in Central Park, standing in line at a bank or drug store or at a copy center while they worked on their resumes.”
Most of the woman who spoke to the newspaper went on the record with their encounters.
Take actress Adrienne LaValley, for example, who outlined a 2008 encounter in a hotel room:
“The way he presented it, it was like, ‘This is how things are done.”
She said Toback tried to rub his crotch against her leg and when she recoiled, he simply masturbated inside his pants.
“I felt like a prostitute, an utter disappointment to myself, my parents, my friends. And I deserved not to tell anyone,” she says now.
Adds Lousie Post, guitarist and singer for Veruca Salt:
“He told me he’d love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes.”
Altogether, the newspaper spoke to 38 women who leveled similar accusations against Toback; 31 of whom were willing to use their names.
In their retelling, the women said Toback boasted of sexual conquests with celebrities and then asked embarrassing personal questions of them, such as:
How often do you masturbate? How much pubic hair do you have?
He’d tell the woman that he couldn’t get a full erection unless he “jerked off” several times a day.
As described above, he would often then he’d dry-hump them or masturbate right in front of them, ejaculating into his pants or on to their bodies and then walk away.
Contacted by The Los Angeles Times for comment, Toback denied these allegations, saying that he had never met any of these women – or, if he did, it “was for five minutes and have no recollection.”
The director also alleged that it has been “biologically impossible” for him to engage the sort of behavior described here because he had diabetes and a heart condition that required medication.
Toback declined to include more details.
As for Weinstein, over 40 women have come forward against him with stories of inappropriate behavior, ranging from sexual harassment to rape.
Through a spokeswoman, Weinstein has “unequivocally denied” all allegations of rape.
But he’s admitted to other instances of crossing the line and said he will seek professional assistance.
Sunday, October 22, 2017
Director James Toback Accused of Sexual Harassment by More Than 30 Women
Director James Toback — famous for films like “Two Girls and a Guy” — has been accused of sexual harassment by over 30 women … this in the wake of Weinstein. The Los Angeles Times posted a story, in which 38 women accuse Toback of decades-long…
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