Bill Murray: In 2008, Jennifer Butler filed for divorce from Murray, citing multiple counts of physical violence and a pattern of intimidation. Butler alleged in court documents that the revered actor and comedian punched her in the face during a confrontation in 2007, telling her she was ‘lucky he didn’t kill her’. The case was widely reported at the time. He went on to star in a number of television and movie projects, including Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and Moonrise Kingdom. In 2017, Murray’s net worth was estimated at US$140 million.
Nelly: In February 2018, it was reported that the rapper was being investigated for an alleged sexual assault that occurred in 2017. His accuser claims she was brought into a dressing room by the rapper, who proceeded to masturbate in front of her and try to force her to perform oral sex on him. In 2017, Nelly was accused of rape by a twenty-two-year-old student from the University of Washington. Months later two more women came forward to allege sexual assault against him. In June 2018, Nelly embarked on a tour of the United States, with many of the shows sold out.
Gary Oldman: In 2001, Donya Fiorentino alleged that her ex-husband choked her and beat her with a telephone as their children looked on. She has since called their marriage ‘a giant car crash’, and said, ‘I would rather get eaten by a great white shark than go through [it] again.’ Oldman went on to star in numerous films, including the Harry Potter franchise. In 2018, he received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his turn as Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour.
Bill O’Reilly: In January 2017, the top-rating Fox News host settled a sexual harassment suit for US$32 million. Twenty-First Century Fox (headed by Rupert Murdoch) acknowledged at the time they had been aware of the woman’s numerous allegations against O’Reilly, which included repeated harassment, the sending of pornographic material to her and a ‘nonconsensual sexual relationship’. Prior to this, there had been at least five similar settlements made relating to allegations of sexual abuse by O’Reilly. In February 2017, Twenty-First Century Fox extended his contract by four years, at an annual salary of US$25 million. In October 2017, the New York Times reported that Murdoch (along with his sons Lachlan and James) ‘made a business calculation to stand by Mr. O’Reilly despite his most recent, and potentially most explosive, harassment dispute’, believing that his ‘value to the network increased after the departure of another prominent host, Megyn Kelly’. Kelly had left the network after alleging sexual harassment against its CEO, Roger Ailes. In April 2017, O’Reilly’s contract was terminated after some of the settlements became public. Details of those settlements included the fact that the women involved were required to turn over any and all evidence they had against O’Reilly, and to discredit the materials as ‘counterfeit and forgeries’ if they were ever to become public. He was rumoured to have left Fox with a US$25 million severance package. In late 2017, his net worth was reported as hovering somewhere between US$85 and US$100 million.
Sean Penn: In 1988, the actor was alleged to have assaulted his then wife, Madonna. Penn pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour. He went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor twice, once in 2003 and again in 2008. The wins followed three earlier nominations.
Roman Polanski: In 1977, the auteur was charged with drugging and raping a thirteen-year-old girl (he pled guilty to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor), but soon fled to France, where he has lived since. When Swiss authorities arrested him in 2009 and threatened to return him to the US, thousands of celebrities (including Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen) became signatories to a petition started by French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy calling for his exoneration. Citing Polanski’s difficult life as an excuse for his crime, Levy argued, ‘It is shameful to throw a 76-year-old man into prison for unlawful sex committed 32 years ago.’ In 2002, Polanski won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or for his movie The Pianist, and an Academy Award, BAFTA and César Award for Best Director. In 2009, he received a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival.
Terry Richardson: Allegations against the photographer date back to at least 2010, when model Jamie Peck claimed Richardson had asked whether he could ‘make tea with her used tampon’, took his clothes off and ‘aggressively assaulted her’. In 2014, model Anna del Gaizo told Jezebel that he had exposed himself and tried to persuade her to perform oral sex on him, while model Sena Cech also alleged sexual abuse against him. They join numerous other women who have alleged sexual misconduct against Richardson over the years. During that same period, Richardson has photographed high-profile celebrities, including Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and even President Barack Obama. In late 2017, almost two decades after the first allegation against Richardson was made, Condé Nast announced they would be severing all contracts with him.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: Five days before the 2003 election in which Schwarzenegger rose to the position of California governor, he was accused by several women of having engaged in sexual harassment over a period of at least twenty-five years. The allegations included claims by three women that Schwarzenegger had groped their breasts, while a fourth said he had grabbed her bottom underneath her skirt. The actor and politician apologised, saying he had ‘behaved badly sometimes’ while denying some of the claims. He said, ‘I’ve learned my lesson. I think that now I am not representing myself but representing the state of California, it is a totally different ball game.’ In 2011, after completing two terms as governor, he returned to acting. He reprised his role as the Terminator in 2015’s Terminator Genisys. In February 2018, Amazon Studios announced they were developing a new series called Outrider that Schwarzenegger will both star in and executive produce. In 2019, he will appear in a new Terminator movie.
Ryan Seacrest: In February 2018, Suzie Hardy told Variety that she had been sexually harassed for years by her former boss. The single mother, who had worked as Seacrest’s personal stylist for E! News, said she endured ‘unwanted, sexually aggressive touching, groping and attention’. She first reported the alleged harassment in 2013, and was fired shortly afterwards. Seacrest continues to host Live with Kelly and Ryan and American Idol, and produces Keeping Up with the Kardashians. His net worth is estimated at US$380 million.
Charlie Sheen: Charlie Sheen has a long history of allegedly abusing women, including ‘accidentally’ shooting fiancée Kelly Preston in the arm, throwing chairs at former wife Denise Richards, being sued by a UCLA student for allegedly hitting her in the head after she refused to have sex with him and, in 2009, being arrested for assaulting his wife Brooke Mueller. At the time, he was the highest-paid actor on television, earning US$1.25 million per episode for his role in Two and a Half Men. It was only after making disparaging public comments about the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, in 2011 that Sheen’s contract was terminated. By the time of his dismissal, his per episode salary had jumped to US$1.8 million. He was hired again to star in the sitcom Anger Management, which commanded the highest ad rates the FX network had ever seen.
Bill Shorten: In 2014, it emerged that the Labor leader had been accused of sexual assault back in the 1980s. The alleged victim stated on Facebook: ‘In 1985 I joined the ALP. In 86 at the age of 16 I . . . became a delegate for state and national conferences. In 86 I went to a Young Labor camp down near Geelong . . . I was alone . . . at about 4am there was a knock at my door. It was him at the door. He pushed me into a bathroom, up against a towel rail, pulled down my pants and raped me.’ After the allegation emerged, Victoria Police confirmed they had investigated a charge of historic sexual assault but were advised by the Office of Public Prosecutions that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. As such, no criminal charges were pursued. Shorten remains the leader of the ALP at the time of writing. He has always adamantly denied the allegations.
Jeffrey Tambor: In late 2017, American actor Tambor’s former assistant Van Barnes alleged that the actor had groped and propositioned her. Tambor denied the allegations, but they were soon followed by new claims from his co-star on Transparent, Trace Lysette. He c
ontinued to vehemently deny the accusations, expressing disappointment in the decision of Amazon and Jill Soloway (Transparent’s creator) to end his employment with the show. Shortly afterwards, it was announced he would be appearing in season five of Arrested Development. In a New York Times interview with the cast in May 2018, Tambor was defended by some of his male castmates over an incident in which he verbally harassed co-star Jessica Walter on-set, reducing her to tears. Walter had described the incident as being one of the worst she had ever experienced during a career spanning more than six decades.
Robin Thicke: The creator of what has been called an anthem for sexual assault (‘Blurred Lines’) was accused in 2017 of having been violent towards his former partner, Paula Patton. Patton was granted a temporary restraining order against the musician, and said Thicke had been physically and emotionally abusive. In June 2018, ‘Blurred Lines’ was certified diamond, having become one of the best-selling singles of all time.
Clarence Thomas: In 1991, Anita Hill testified before US Congress that Thomas, a candidate for the Supreme Court, had engaged in a pattern of sexual harassment while she worked for him at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Hill, an African-American woman, was decried as a ‘liar, a temptress and a race-traitor’ who was ‘trying to keep a black man off the Supreme Court’. Thomas was ultimately confirmed by the Senate, with a vote of fifty-two in favour, forty-eight opposed. Supreme Court appointments are for life. The annual salary is more than US$250,000.
James Toback: In October 2017, an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times citing thirty-eight women alleged to have been subjected to sexual harassment by the award-winning director and writer. Since the article appeared, the number of accusers has risen to more than 200. One of those women, A-list actress Rachel McAdams, says she was twenty-one when Toback sexually harassed her on the pretext of meeting to discuss an audition. When she told her agent the next morning, she recalls her agent getting mad and saying, ‘I can’t believe he did it again. He did this to one of my other actresses.’ In April 2018, it was reported that the LA County District Attorney’s Office had declined to press charges against Toback.
Donald Trump: To date, at least sixteen women have alleged sexual harassment and/or assault at the hands of Trump. He has been accused of raping a thirteen-year-old girl. His former wife, Ivana Trump, alleged in divorce proceedings that Trump had raped her during their marriage, though the claims were later recalled after a settlement was reached. In late 2016, shortly before the US election in which Trump was running as the Republican nominee for president, audio footage from 2005 was released in which he can be heard to say, ‘You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.’ Trump is now the president of the United States of America.
Mike Tyson: In 1992, heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson was handed a six-year prison sentence for raping Desiree Washington, who was eighteen at the time. He was released after three. His first wife, Robin Givens, described life with Tyson as ‘torture, pure hell, worse than anything I could possibly have imagined’. He appeared in the 2009 buddy movie The Hangover playing a caricature of himself. In 2012, director Spike Lee helped Tyson bring his one-man show Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth to Broadway. In 2013, Tyson’s book Undisputed Truth made it onto the New York Times bestseller list. In 2017, USA Today wrote in a positive profile piece that the former boxer turned podcaster had ‘reinvented himself and become a sought-after personality just by being himself’. In 2018, he became the face of an ad campaign for Ultra Tune, an Australian car-servicing company.
Lars von Trier: In 2017, singer-songwriter and actress Björk spoke publicly for the first time about the abuse she was allegedly subjected to while filming von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000). In two separate Facebook posts, Bjork accused the Danish director of having repeatedly sexually harassed her during the course of the production, alleging he even tried to sneak into her room at one point. In 2018, von Trier was welcomed back to the Cannes Film Festival—following a seven-year ban issued in 2011, for comments in which he joked he was a Nazi—to promote his new film. The House That Jack Built follows a serial killer over the course of twelve years as he mutilates and tortures women and children. Although a significant number of people walked out during the screening, those who remained gave the film a standing ovation.
Harvey Weinstein: In October 2017, a New York Times article detailed allegations of sexual harassment, abuse and assault perpetrated by the powerful Hollywood producer dating back to 1985. The allegations spawned the #timesup movement, and the #MeToo movement founded by civil rights activist Tarana Burke a decade earlier went global. Weinstein’s accusers included well-known actresses like Rose McGowan, Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Annabella Sciorra, Salma Hayek, Lupita Nyong’o, Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino and Asia Argento, plus dozens and dozens more. Since the initial story broke, more than eighty women have accused the former head of Miramax and The Weinstein Company of abuse. The incidents include at least eighteen allegations of rape. In 2010, former Miramax employee Ivana Lowell wrote about Weinstein’s behaviour in her memoir, Why Not Say What Happened? He was questioned in 2015 by members of the New York Police Department after model Ambra Gutierrez reported he had touched her inappropriately. Gutierrez worked with the NYPD to record Weinstein admitting to the behaviour. On the audio tape, he can be heard trying to coerce her to accompany him to his hotel room as she repeatedly resists. Against the advice of local police, the Manhattan District Attorney declined to press charges. References and jokes about Weinstein’s behaviour towards women—young actresses in particular—date back decades, with Gwyneth Paltrow hinting on the Late Show with David Letterman in 1998 that Weinstein will ‘coerce you to do a thing or two’. In 2018, Paltrow revealed to Vanity Fair that Weinstein had tried to assault her in a hotel room in the late 1990s. She told her boyfriend, Brad Pitt, about it at the time and reports that he ‘threatened to kill Harvey’ if he ever went near her again. Pitt went on to make numerous movies with Miramax and The Weinstein Company. Rose McGowan alleges Weinstein raped her during this same period. Lucia Evans, a former actress, alleges Weinstein orally raped her in 2004. In a 2017 article for the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow alleges that the previous year Weinstein had hired ex-Mossad agents to collect information on his accusers and the journalists investigating him, and to use this to discredit their claims. Numerous women allege Weinstein threatened to destroy their careers if they spoke out against him or refused to comply with his advances. In December 2017, the director Peter Jackson admitted he blacklisted Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd after what he called ‘a smear campaign by Harvey Weinstein’. Both women had been slated to appear in Jackson’s adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, but were abruptly dropped from the production. In May 2018, Weinstein was arrested by the NYPD and charged with multiple counts of rape, criminal sex acts, sex abuse and sexual misconduct. Weinstein pleaded not guilty. At the time of writing, he was awaiting trial. His net worth is currently estimated at US$50 million.
EPILOGUE
Dear F_____
My darling boy, the first thing you need to know is that I love you. My love for you is a constantly evolving creature. It has made its home in my heart, but it travels through every part of my body finding new places to set down roots. Every night, I think to myself that it’s impossible for me to love you any more than I already do; that my body is so full of love for you that it simply can’t fit a shred more in. And every morning I wake up and realise that, just like you, it’s grown a little bit more in the dark.
A few hours after you were born, when the chaos of birth was over and our room was quiet and still, I began to drift off to sleep only to be interrupted by a wet, mucous-y cough coming from the bassinette next to my bed. I bolted upright and furiously smashed the call button for the nurse. I lifted you up, still un
sure of how to hold you properly, and handed you to the calm man who appeared before me.
Don’t worry, he said, gently rubbing your tiny back. This is normal.
I felt in that moment just how terrifying it was to have you, the precious person who had placed such primal trust in me. It seemed like life from then on would be lived on the precipice of a cliff, and that if I failed to pay proper attention you could go tumbling over the edge. When we brought you home from the hospital, I lay with you on our bed in the dim glow of the lamplight and thought to myself, I’ve made a terrible mistake. I knew that a huge amount of responsibility lay before me, and I feared I wasn’t up to the task.
I hope you know that having you has been the greatest gift of my life.
At first, I didn’t know how to have a boy. I know how cruel the world can be to girls, and that this cruelty in turn affects the boys who don’t conform to what people expect of them. I knew that no matter what kind of boy you turned out to be (if, indeed, you turned out to be a boy), there was no guarantee you would be treated kindly for it. To be girlish as a boy is to be deficient in some way. To do things ‘like a girl’ is to be embarrassingly lacking in skills and ability, a shameful waste of all the promise your masculinity is supposed to deliver on. The boys perceived to be ‘too feminine’ by a society terrified of what soft, gentle masculinity might mean are frequently subjected to the twin tyrannies of homophobia and misogyny. We will always provide shelter for you from other people’s fear and bigotry, but not every boy is so lucky.
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