In news that will shock absolutely nobody, Hollywood actor and musician Jared Leto has been accused of “predatory, terrifying and unacceptable” by multiple women.
According to a report by Air Mail, nine women in total have accused the 53-year-old of inappropriate behavior, including flirting with teenagers.
One woman said that back in 2006, when she was 16, Leto approached her outside a cafe in Los Angeles. Leto, who was seated with the actor Ashley Olsen, allegedly grabbed the girl’s arm.
“I looked down and it was Jared Leto,” the woman said, adding: “We had a quick conversation, and he got my number.” She went on to say that Leto called her home a few days later: “I don’t know if he was on drugs or what … It was the weirdest, grossest voice … [But] for me, it’s Jared, you know?”
She claims that Leto invited her to a house party he was hosting that evening. She declined, telling Air Mail: “I didn’t even have a driver’s license.” Even still, she said, Leto kept calling her, “always at one, two, three AM”.
“And the conversations turned sexual. He’d ask things like: ‘Have you ever had a boyfriend? Have you ever sucked a dick?’”
Another woman, model Laura La Rue, recounted a similar experience, saying that when she was 16 years old in 2008, she was at an event in a private residence in Beverly Hills where Leto was “watching her so intensely”.
“He asked how old I was. I said, ‘I’m 16. How old are you?’”. Leto, who was 36 at the time, asked for her number. She eventually visited Leto’s home in April 2009, the outlet reports.
“I remember him teasing me the whole time I was there,” La Rue said, adding: “He was flirting with me. He’d lean in close, then pull away, like it was a game.”
During another visit, La Rue said, Leto walked out of a room completely naked when she was 17 years old. “He just walked out, dick out, like it was normal … I thought maybe this was just what adult men do.”
Another woman who spoke to Air Mail said that she and Leto began a texting relationship while she was still underage. She claims Leto would ask her inappropriate questions during her visits to his house, such as: “Do any of the little boys you hang out with fuck you?”
The woman added that once, when she was 18, Leto “suddenly pulled his penis out and started masturbating”. She told the outlet: “Then he walked over, grabbed my hand, and put it on him. He leaned in and said: ‘I want you to spit on it.’”
Another woman, Allie Teilz, an LA-based DJ and music producer, last month on Instagram reposted a 2012 Facebook status in which she had said: “You’re not really in L.A. until Jared Leto tries to force himself on you backstage… In a kilt.. And a snow hat.”
In her Instagram stories, Teilz added: “I was assaulted and traumatized by this creep when I was 17 … He knew my age and didn’t care. What he did was predatory, terrifying and unacceptable.”
Yikes. Of course, Leto has “expressly denied” every single one of these accusations (through a representative), claiming they are all “demonstrably false.”
It’s worth noting that rumours around Jared Leto’s perversions have been doing the rounds for years, with even Dylan Sprouse and James Gunn accusing him of perving on underage or barely legal girls:
Blimey. How did Jared Leto get through the #MeToo era unscathed? How did movie studios keep hiring him? They had to know that someday all this stuff would come to light, and it’s not like he’s a particularly big box office draw for it to warrant the risk.
Of course, it’s important to remember that these are all allegations at this point. Still, if nine+ women are all accusing you of inappropriate behaviour at the same time, and all their stories are fairly similar, it doesn’t look good, does it? Morbin’ time indeed.