During the latest episode of Call Her Daddy, Charlize Theron discussed why she won’t name the director she alleges sexually harassed her when she was just starting her career.
When asked by host Alex Cooper about publicly sharing her story, The Old Guard 2 star recalled the incident. Theron first came forward with her experience during an interview on The Howard Stern Show in 2019, in which she claimed she went to a director’s house for an audition late at night and he greeted her in his pajamas. At time, Theron said the director put his had on her knee, and that she got up and left after.
“I didn’t know what the audition process looked like,” Theron told Cooper. “The little voice inside me definitely said, ‘This isn’t right.’ But then, the other voice in me says, ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe it is right.’”
Theron said that after coming forward with her story, the director “got a little nervous for a while there.” She added, “I’ve never said his name because honestly, I don’t want the story to be about him. It’s not because I’m protecting him or anything, but he got nervous for a little bit.”
She further explained, “Because he heard me tell the story, and he knew it was about him, and he wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it, which is classic, isn’t it?”
“I think he started panicking,” she continued. “And I just realized, like, I won’t even fucking say your name because you know you’re the scumbag. You know it’s you and if anybody ever asked me about him, I would be completely honest, and he knows that. And I kind of like that he’s got to be on a hot seat. He doesn’t know when it’s going to come. I kind of like that a little more.”
In her recent documentary Call Her Alex, Cooper detailed alleged sexual harassment she said began in 2013 while on the Boston University women’s soccer team, and claimed that her then-coach, Nancy Feldman, developed a fixation on her that led to “deeply uncomfortable” interactions, including verbal remarks and physical touch.
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When speaking to the podcast host, Theron said she was “grateful” for Cooper sharing her story and respected her choice. “I think that we need to tell these stories so that we can understand we’re not alone,” said Theron. “It’s hard to tell them in a world where people don’t want to fucking believe you. It’s really, really hard. It doesn’t make it easy for us.”
From Rolling Stone US
