Thandie Newton recently recalled a disgusting encounter with a Hollywood director that has led her to speak out and inform others of the abuse going on in the entertainment industry.
In an interview with W, Newton recalled the time a director groped her during an audition. “A director, on a callback, had a camera shooting up my skirt and asked me to touch my tits and think about the guy making love to me in the scene. I thought, ‘OK, this is a little weird,’ but there was a female casting director in the room and I’d done weird stuff before so I did it.”
We Need to Examine How NYC Schools Handles Sexual Assault Cases of Black Girls
The actress said it wasn’t until years later that she found out what happened to her casting video.
One night she ran into a drunk producer who said, “Oh, Thandie, I’ve seen you recently!” Her husband, Ol Parker, confronted the man, who revealed that the scummy director had been showing the video to friends. “It turns out that the director was showing that audition tape to his friends after poker games at his house and they would all get off on it.” Disgusting!
Thandie added, “I was so, so naïve when I started out and I realize now that we have to prepare our kids— I’ve got two beautiful daughters, one is 16 one is 11. So many people in our business, they don’t want to be the ones to say something. That’s a bum out, because then they become associated with a bum out and nobody wants to read about so-and-so because they’re always blabbering on about a bum out. But one person will read this and it will stop them getting sexually abused by a director. That’s the person I’m interested in.”
WANT MORE FROM ESSENCE? Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest in hair, beauty, style and celebrity news.