John Oliver publicly spars with Dustin Hoffman over sexual harassment claims
A 20th-anniversary event for Barry Levinson’s Wag the Dog on Manhattan’s Upper East Side turned contentious Monday night when host and moderator John Oliver confronted star Dustin Hoffman about the sexual harassment claims that have been made against the 80-year-old actor in recent months.
“This is something we’re going to have to talk about because… it’s hanging in the air,” Oliver told Hoffman (via The Washington Post), to which the actor replied, “It’s hanging in the air? From a few things you’ve read you’ve made an incredible assumption about me… You’ve made the case better than anyone else can. I’m guilty.”
Actress Anna Graham Hunter wrote a column for The Hollywood Reporter in which she alleged Hoffman groped her and made inappropriate remarks to her while she interned on the 1985 Death of a Salesman TV film. A second woman, Genius producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis, then told Variety that the actor propositioned her during a meeting in 1991.
Hoffman released a statement to THR following Hunter’s column that read, “I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”
Read more:
http://ew.com/movies/2017/12/05/john-oliver-dustin-hoffman-sexual-harassment/