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There’s a Reason They Call It the Casting Couch. Contact Us If You Were Assaulted, Even Years Ago.

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Decades of Abuse

For over a century, no enterprise has personified serial misogyny more than the entertainment industry. Louis B. Mayer, the co-founder of MGM, allegedly invented the casting couch to go with the whip he would threaten to crack if you didn’t do as he wished. There were others like him: Jack Warner (Warner Bros.); Henry Wilson (Columbia); and Alfred Hitchcock – before Cosby, Allen, and Weinstein.

If you were sexually assaulted while auditioning or working in the film, movie, news, or TV industries, please contact us for a confidential and free consultation.

Some states have opened their statutes of limitations (SOLs), allowing more time for survivors to come to grips with what happened to them. But even these new windows of opportunity have deadlines.

CALIFORNIA – The look-back goes to 2009, but you have until December 2026 to get your case on file.

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Phoniness and failure were all over them. Some were vicious and crooked. But they were as near to the movies as you could get. So, you sat with them, listening to their lies and schemes. And you saw Hollywood with their eyes — an overcrowded brothel, a merry-go-round with beds for horses.

– Marilyn Monroe

Bombshell Stats.

USA Today1 asked, “How common is sexual misconduct in Hollywood?” The answer it gave in 2018 was an eye-popping 94 percent, with “almost every one of hundreds of women questioned in the publication’s exclusive interview saying they had experienced some form of sexual harassment or assault during their careers in Hollywood” (USA Today, Feb. 23, 2018).

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No Network Left Behind.

Television after WWII, with huge ad budgets, amplified the culture of misogyny growing wild in the business. Mainstream and nightly news reporting gave way to subscription cable entertainment news 24/7 and digital adaptations. Paid streaming services began offering racier fare and less viewer discretion.

But something about entertainment news seemed to kick cultures of sexual abuse up a notch, with scandals at FOX (former CEO Roger Ailes, deceased, and Bill O’Reilly, primetime show host); NBC (TODAY host Matt Lauer); CBS/Paramount (former CEO Les Moonves); and PBS (Charlie Rose, host of the eponymous talk show). Now ABC has joined ranks.

ABC

The Cut2 released an “explosive exposé” January 29 (2023), diving deeper into the on-camera affair of fired ABC/GMA3 (lunch segment) co-anchors T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach. Statements from crewmembers alleged they were eyewitnesses to that event and other “generally pervasive misconduct“ at the network.

FOX

Fox News ex-bookkeeper Laurie Luhn filed a second lawsuit in January (2023) against FNN and its former executive Bill Shine. According to Bloomberg3, Luhn’s new lawsuit charges Fox with discrimination and negligence, and Shine for enabling Ailes, her abuser for 20 years. “’Booking meeting’ was code for [me] to meet with Ailes to be assaulted,” Luhn said.

CBS

And a $30.5 million settlement was negotiated in November (2022) between CBS’ parent company Paramount Global, CBS former CEO Leslie Moonves and New York AG Letitia James after an investigation revealed attempts by CBS heads to cover up sex assault allegations against Moonves. Part of the coverup included attempts to silence his victims.

“During Moonves’ tenure, men at CBS News who were accused of sexual misconduct were promoted, even as the company paid settlements to women with complaints.”4

– New Yorker (July 28, 2018)

NBC

In late 2017 just as the Harvey Weinstein controversy launched #MeToo, Matt Lauer, longtime NBC co-host of the Today Show with Katie Couric, was charged with sexual misconduct at the 2014 Sochi Olympics by a female employed at NBC, opening a floodgate of accusations. He was fired without pay.

In October 2019, Variety5 published an excerpt from Ronan Farrow’s book, Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators6, in which “former NBC News employee Brooke Nevils alleged Matt Lauer raped her in his hotel room at the Sochi Olympics.”

PBS

Ailes, Moonves, and Lauer claimed innocence. Charlie Rose apologized, saying, “All of us are just now learning about the severity of sexual harassment.”

That’s putting it mildly.

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Entertainment Industry is High Risk for Abuse.

About #icouldntsayno

A Case for Women is here to help you move forward with powerful legal action. Our goal is not just to help individuals seek justice via civil legal action, but to utilize the combined power of all survivors’ voices to create systemic change. On this initiative, we are working with the California-based sexual assault law firm, Boucher LLP.

Boucher LLP accepts cases on a contingency fee basis and will only be compensated if and when they achieve a positive settlement or verdict in your case.

If you are a female professional who’s been sexually harassed or assaulted by a male colleague or male authority at the office, please find your voice and join us to halt high-stakes sexual politics in power professions. Every new voice turns up the volume.

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Learn More About Sexual Assault Lawsuits:

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Entertainment

Finance

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Women’s Voices Carry.

Women have long expressed they are afraid to talk because no “real” rules protect them from “insanely brutal retaliation” when its her word against his. It’s time to abolish that fear.

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Sources

  1. Maria Puente and Cara Kelly, “How common is sexual misconduct in Hollywood?” USA Today, February 23, 2018.
  2. Angelina Chapin, “Inside the Horned UP Office Culture at ABC,” Thc Cut/New York Magazine, February 27, 2023.
  3. Chris Dolmetch, “Fox News Sued by Ex-Booker over Negligence in ‘Decades-Long’ Abuse Campaign,Bloomberg, January 23, 2023.
  4. Ronan Farrow “Les Moonves and CBS Face Allegations of Sexual Misconduct,” The New Yorker, July 27, 2018.
  5. Daniel Addarrio, “Catch and Kill: The ‘Podcast Tapes’ Provides An Elegant Showcase for Ronan Farrow’s Reporting: TV Review, Variety, July 12, 2021.
  6. Isabel Togoh, “’Catch and Kill’: Five Things We Learned from Ronan Farrow’s Harvey Weinstein Book,” Forbes, October 7, 2019.