Ashley Judd says she was sexually harassed by a movie mogul who asked her to watch him take a shower
In Variety's "Power of Women" issue, Judd shared a story that, while filming "Kiss the Girls" at Paramount, she was summoned numerous times by a rival studio head to meet him at his hotel room under the pretense of talking about future roles.
The situation escalated when, the studio "mogul," as Judd describes him, tried to get Judd to watch him take a shower.
Judd declined to name the person.
Here are excerpts of what Judd told Variety:
"I was sexually harassed by one of our industry's most famous, admired-slash-rivaled bosses ... He was very stealth and expert about it. He groomed me, which is a technical term - Oh, come meet at the hotel for something to eat. Fine, I show up. Oh, he's actually in his room. I'm like, Are you kidding me? I just worked all night. I'm just going to order cereal. It went on in these stages. It was so disgusting. He physically lured me by saying, 'Oh, help me pick out what I'm going to wear.' There was a lot that happened between the point of entry and the bargaining. There was this whole process of bargaining-'Come do this, come do this, come do this.' And I would say, 'No, no, no.'
Judd says she later learned that the "mogul" was doing the same thing to other actresses. One story she says they all shared: the man asked each of them to watch him shower.
Years went by and Judd couldn't forget the harassment and says she was "hard on herself" for not standing up to the studio head. But she says now she realizes it was sexual harassment, and it wasn't legal.
Read the complete story at Variety.