Hollywood producer Brett Ratner has made headline news this month as six women (including Olivia Munn) have come forward to accuse him of sexual harassment and in some cases, assault. It has come to the point where Gal Gadot has refused to sign on for Wonder Woman’s sequel where she plays the starring role, if the producer isn’t fired from the project.
While multiple women have been coming forward to share their experiences of sexual harassment with the 48-year-old film producer, actress Ellen Page took to her Facebook account to share a different form of harassment that she suffered at the hands of Ratner, explaining how he publicly outed the actress as gay before she was ready when they worked together on X Men in 2006.
In the post, Page describing what she says happened when the cast and crew met before filming started.
She describes how the director pointed at her and told another woman she should sleep with her “to make her realise she’s gay”.
The actress explains that she had not come out to herself at the stage: “I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak.”
She says she felt “violated” and that no-one spoke out to defend her.
She describes it as a “public, aggressive outing” that left her feeling ashamed.
Her post also tells how she has been working since she was 10. She says she has met “respectful collaborators” during her career.
But she also talks about abusers who “want you to feel small, to make you insecure, to make you feel like you are indebted to them, or that your actions are to blame for their unwelcome advances”.
She describes another director fondling her leg when she was 16 and telling her to “make the move” on him.
I was sexually assaulted by a grip months later. I was asked by a director to sleep with a man in his late 20s and to tell them about it. I did not.”
She also criticises people in Hollywood who know that people are being harassed and “choose to look the other way”.
Now she says there must be “a long awaited reckoning”.
I want to see these men have to face what they have done. I want them to not have power anymore.
I want them to sit and think about who they are without their lawyers, their millions, their fancy cars, houses upon houses, their ‘playboy’ status and swagger.”
She calls for other people to speak out, saying:
You are breaking the silence. You are the revolution.”
