Michael Douglas Preemptively Denies Accusation

January 10, 2018

Actors Fund Career Transition for Dancers Jubilee Gala, New York, USA - 01 Nov 2017After being contacted by a reporter saying a woman had made allegations about him, actor Michael Douglas denied the allegations, saying he had the choice of waiting for a story to come out or try to share his “thoughts and concerns” with the public in advance.

The award winning actor, who is half Bermudian and frequently spends time on the island, shared the Deadline article on social media today saying, “This is an important article I’d like my friends to read.”

Mr Douglas told Deadline, “I felt the need to get ahead of this. It pertains to me but I’m also getting a sense of how it reflects in our culture, and what is going on today. I see it as a cautionary tale.

“Right before the holidays in December, the day my son got early acceptance to the college he wants to go to, when we were all ecstatic, I got a message from my attorney that The Hollywood Reporter wanted to do a story about an employee that worked for me approximately 32 years ago.

“She claims that, One, I used colorful language in front of her, not at her, but that I used colorful language. Two, she claims that in conversations I had in front of her, on the phone, that I spoke raunchily, or dirtily with friends of mine, in private conversations. I fired her eventually, for the work she was doing, but Three, she claims that I blackballed her from the industry and stopped her from getting another job.

Mr Douglas also said the woman claims that he performed a sex act in front of her, and when his attorney was asked did he have any comment, he said, “Let me speak to the reporter. I tried to think to reach back thirty plus years to try to remember. I remembered this woman: sophisticated intelligent, good sense of humor. A novelist, who has written books and published novels and was an active feminist, and proud of it. My head was reeling. I just couldn’t put this together. I’ve had no contact with her, in thirty-plus years.

“I talked to the reporter and said, ‘listen, as far as using colorful language in front her, I apologize. None of it was directed at her; she didn’t say it was. It was my office and that was the tone that I set and as far as conversations with friends.’ I work out of my house, my apartment in New York at the time, to the best of my recollection. As to colorful language, she may have overheard private conversations, and if she was offended, she could have excused herself.

“As far as blackballing her, that was completely untrue. She was a lady who was involved in development at my company, and we just didn’t have a good development record in the time she was there, so I just moved on.

“I never blackballed her. If people from the industry called me to ask about her, I would have been honest, but I never blackballed her,” Mr Douglas said, adding the allegation he performed a sex act in front of her is a “complete lie, fabrication, no truth to it whatsoever.”

“The reporter told me, ‘she did say that you never harassed her, never touched her,’ and I said…okay. So I didn’t know where this comes from. The reporter said, ‘let me digest this, and we’ll sit on it over the holidays and get back into it after.’

“I was floored. I didn’t know what to say and I tried to digest it,” he said. ”I pride myself of being so supportive of the women’s movement.

My mother was an actress, and I myself married to an actress and have been supportive of this movement wholeheartedly, through all my years. I was forced to look over my past. I’ve had up to 20 female executives who worked at my company in different areas over the years.

“Over 20 producers I partnered with on pictures have been women. Not to mention all the actresses I’ve worked with and the hundreds of performers. How am I, in a 50 year career in this industry, dealing with an employee 33 years ago who perhaps is disgruntled that I let her go, even though I have never heard from her in 32 years. And a legitimate trade publication is going to try and print this story? There is no corroboration, just that they found out somebody else might run the story.”

“I had the choice of waiting for a story to come out, one that will clearly get picked up by other newspapers and magazines, and then I have to sit there and try to defend myself. Or, try to share with the public, a little ahead of the story, my thoughts and concerns.”

You can read the full interview with Mr Douglas here on Deadline.

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Comments (18)

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  1. George says:

    Tis the season after all! Let the man hunt continue! Long live man hunting! ; )

  2. He and others are just people. People OF ALL COLOURS commit crimes. That is a fact of life.
    One colour of people is no better than another colour.
    To err is HUMAN!!!!

  3. wahoo says:

    Good grief….

  4. The Dark Knight Returns says:

    SMDH when is this madness going to stop? 32 years ago come on get over yourself lady.

  5. Infidelguy says:

    Hollywood is rife with sexual perverts!

  6. It is easier to fool a person …
    Than to convince them you are fooling them
    …Whether ’tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them…but you don’t do either… neither suffer or oppose ,you just obolish the slings and arrows…
    It is called slander…

  7. Tomas says:

    Michael and his ancestors have a great Bermuda history and I would expect he would want to extend that legacy forever but he has chosen to cutoff that legacy. The Arial Sands development did not materialize and his family home, Langford House dating back to early 1800′s, has been for sale for 18 months. Obviously Michael feels Bermuda is no longer his home and is leaving it all behind, sad.