Brett Ratner is renowned for hit films such as Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand, but, the director is now in the news due to sexual harassment allegations.
Los Angeles Times reported that six women, Natasha Henstridge, Katherine Towne, Olivia Munn, Jamie Ray Newman, Eri Sasaki, and Jorina King have alleged sexual harassment by Ratner. Ratner’s attorney Martin Singer issued a statement in response to the report.
“I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment,” Singer said. “Furthermore, no woman has ever requested or received any financial settlement from my client.”
Natasha Henstridge confided with the Times that Ratner forcibly had oral sex with her in his New York home in the 1990s. She was 19 at that time. “He strong-armed me in a real way. He physically forced himself on me,”Henstridge said. “At some point, I gave in, and he did his thing.”
As per Katherine Towne, she was with Ratner at a party back in 2005 when according to her he aggressively approached her and followed her into the bathroom. After that, Ratner tried through his assistant for months to fix a date with her. “He started to come on to me in a way that was so extreme. I think it’s pretty aggressive to go in the bathroom with someone you don’t know and close the door,” Towne said.
Olivia Munn says that she had multiple incidents with Ratner, from 2004 onwards. She was associated with his film After the Sunset, and she recalled carrying food to his trailer. As soon as she entered, “He walked out … with his belly sticking out, no pants on, shrimp cocktail in one hand and he was furiously masturbating in the other,” Munn said. “And before I literally could even figure out where to escape or where to look, he ejaculated.”
Munn again faced him in 2011 when he stated on TV that he had slept with her. Later he apologized to her on the Howard Stern show.
Ratner’s assistants David Steiman, Hopi Dobuler, Drew Sherman, Brett Gursky and Izak Rappaport have all come out in his support and denied having been witness to any of this behavior from Ratner.
