The director of the BBC’s bombshell new Jared Leto documentary has claimed the actor’s looks may have helped protect him.
Alice McShane’s film, Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, includes accusations of sexual assault, statutory rape, grooming and threats of sexual assault.
The four women who make the most serious allegations in the film say they encountered the 54-year-old Oscar-winning actor and musician between 2002 and 2016, when they were between 16 and 18 years old each, and he was in his 30s and 40s.
Leto has denied all the allegations, saying in a statement to The Independent: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
Similar allegations were made against Leto last year, which he also denied. In a new interview with Variety, McShane said that it is a “mystery” why his career has not been impacted by the repeated accusations.
The filmmaker continued: “There’s something about our culture at the moment — I think there’s something that I feel might be happening 10 years on from #MeToo. It just feels like the outrage about stories like this has slightly cooled, and I think that also with the rise of the manosphere, and also people in very significant positions of power having had allegations leveled at them as well about their treatment of women, I think that in a way, these sorts of stories have been normalized in people’s minds, and I just don’t think that they get the traction perhaps that they would have done 10 years ago.
“So I think that’s part of it. I also think with Leto, he’s cultivated this persona of this kind of weird, enigmatic, mysterious guy, and I think, in a way, that sort of shielded him from accountability.”
She added: “He’s also an incredibly good-looking man, and I think that there is an element of ‘pretty’ privilege here, and that that actually came through in a lot of the interviews with the women.”
Leto first rose to prominence in the 1990s on the television drama My So-Called Life before winning the Academy Award for best supporting actor in 2014 for Dallas Buyers Club. He is also the lead vocalist of Thirty Seconds to Mars, the band he formed with his brother, Shannon, in 1998.
One allegation in McShane’s film comes from a woman using the pseudonym Isabel, who alleged Leto sexually assaulted her in a Las Vegas motel bathroom in 2002 when she was 17.
A second woman, identified as Alex, has alleged that Leto threatened her with sexual assault after inviting her to his hotel room following a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert in London in 2013. Alex, who said she was 19 but told Leto she was 17, alleged he replied: “Age is just a number, and anyway, we’re in Europe.”
She said she left after he repeatedly told her she would wake up “with a d*** in her a**”.
Another woman, using the pseudonym Clara, alleged she first had sex with Leto at his California home in 2006 when she was 17 and he was 34. She alleged Leto dismissed a discussion about California's age of consent – which is 18 – and referred to her as “my little girl” while asking her to call him “daddy.”
A fourth woman, identified as Etta, alleged Leto groomed her after meeting her at a Los Angeles modeling agency in 2014, when she was 16. She told the BBC he later made repeated sexually explicit phone calls, asking whether she was a virgin and suggesting they should have sex.
Etta also alleged Leto later attempted to have her sign a non-disclosure agreement. The BBC said it had reviewed the unsigned agreement, along with related emails and text messages.
The investigation also includes accounts from five women who alleged they received sexually explicit phone calls from Leto while they were younger, four of whom said they were teenagers at the time.
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).
If you are in the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, and 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland, or visit their website at www.rapecrisis.org.uk.
