80-year-old actor Morgan Freeman has been accused of harassment and “inappropriate behavior” by at least eight women, according to a new report from CNN. One of those accusers is CNN entertainment reporter Chloe Melas, who co-wrote the story breaking the allegations. The others include journalists, production assistants, and staffers at Revelations Entertainment (the company co-founded by Freeman in 1996), who describe a pattern of unwanted touching and inappropriate comments about their appearances.
According to the article, Melas began investigating Freeman after an encounter during the press junket for his 2017 movie Going in Style:
According to Melas, who was six months pregnant at the time, Freeman, in a room full of people, including his co-stars Arkin and Caine, shook Melas’ hand, not letting go while repeatedly looking her up and down and saying more than once a variation of, “I wish I was there.” She says he also said to her, “You are ripe.”
An anonymous production assistant on Going in Style accuses Freeman of “unwanted touching and comments about her figure and clothing on a near-daily basis” and of trying to lift up her skirt until his costar, Alan Arkin, “made a comment telling him to stop.” (CNN reports Arkin declined to comment for the story.) Another employee at Revelations told CNN that when she first met Freeman on the set of Through the Wormhole (a science documentary series he hosted from 2010 to 2017), he asked her, “How do you feel about sexual harassment?”
The CNN report cites eight accusers in total, along with another eight people who claim to have witnessed Freeman’s alleged conduct. One male employee compared him to “a creepy uncle.” The report also notes that Freeman has previously made the news for comments about his Revelations co-founder Lori McCreary, of whom he once said, “She wants to be thought of as serious. But you can’t get away from the short dresses.”
McCreary is also the object of some accusations in the article, as a witness to Freeman’s alleged behavior on at least one occasion and for “openly mock[ing] women who had to leave work early for family commitments and school functions, “ according to two Revelations employees. CNN reports that via a spokesperson, McCreary did not respond to requests for comment, but the Producers Guild of America, of which McCreary is a board member, issued a statement in response:
The Producers Guild of America is an Equal Opportunity Employer that does not question or consider marital or parental status in its hiring practices. As soon as CNN notified us about the allegation, we investigated the matter and have found that it has no merit. Lori McCreary is an outstanding PGA President. In all of her work with the Guild, she has been a consistent, vocal, and proactive advocate for women and all who are underrepresented in our community.
CNN reached out to Freeman’s spokesperson for comment along with “a detailed list of the accusations against Freeman” sent at the spokesperson’s request. They received no response.
Update, May 29, 2018: After apologizing “to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected” on Thursday, Freeman issued the following statement over the weekend:
I am devastated that 80 years of my life is at risk of being undermined, in the blink of an eye, by Thursday’s media reports.
All victims of assault and harassment deserve to be heard. And we need to listen to them. But it is not right to equate horrific incidents of sexual assault with misplaced compliments or humor.
I admit that I am someone who feels a need to try to make women—and men—feel appreciated and at ease around me. As a part of that, I would often try to joke with and compliment women, in what I thought was a light-hearted and humorous way.
Clearly I was not always coming across the way I intended. And that is why I apologized Thursday and will continue to apologize to anyone I might have upset, however unintentionally.
But I also want to be clear: I did not create unsafe work environments. I did not assault women. I did not offer employment or advancement in exchange for sex. Any suggestion that I did so is completely false.
As of Tuesday, Freeman’s lawyer has also demanded an apology and retraction to CNN’s story. In a 10-page letter obtained by the Hollywood Reporter, attorney Robert M. Schwartz accuses CNN of defaming both Freeman and McCreary and says that Melas misinterpreted Freeman’s comments during the Going in Style press tour:
It is correct that, during the interview, Mr. Freeman said, “I wish I was there.” But Ms. Melas had no factual basis to have interpreted that as a statement about her, or as sexual harassment. The videotape makes clear that Mr. Freeman was in fact responding to a story that Michael Caine had just told. In that story, Mr. Caine had congratulated a woman on becoming pregnant, only to learn to Mr. Caine’s (and the woman’s) embarrassment that she was not pregnant. When Mr. Freeman said “I wish I was there,” any reasonable viewer would have known that the “there” to which he was referring was the conversation in which Mr. Freeman’s friend, Mr. Caine, had embarrassed himself. That is exactly what Mr. Freeman intended.
