Orange Is The New Black star Yael Stone has alleged that veteran Australian actor Geoffrey Rush subjected her to sexual advances, inappropriate language and watched her showering naked in a shared dressing room.
Speaking to the New York Times, Yael said the alleged incidents happened in 2010 and 2011 during a run of the stage play The Diary of a Madman.
The actress alleges the star would send her ‘affectionate and flirtatious’ that were sometimes sexual in tone, although she bantered with Rush due to the power imbalance in their relationship.
‘There was no part of my brain considering speaking to anyone in any official capacity. This was a huge star,’ she told the New York Times. ‘What were they going to do? Fire Geoffrey and keep me?’
She further alleges Rush would sometimes dance completely naked in front of her, and once while bathing she saw a ‘small shaving mirror over the top of the partition between the showers,’ which she believes he was using to observe her nude body.
‘I believe that it was meant with a playful intention, but the effect was that I felt there was nowhere for me to feel safe and unobserved,’ she told the paper. ‘Gradually the text messages became more sexual in nature, but always encased in this very highfalutin intellectual language.’
‘I’m embarrassed by the ways I participated. I certainly wouldn’t engage as the person I am now in the way I did when I was 25.
‘I said some words to the effect of, “Bugger off, Geoffrey.” I was walking a very delicate line where I needed to manage these uncomfortable moments but never, never offend him.’
Rush told the Times: ‘… the allegations of inappropriate behaviour made by Yael Stone are incorrect and in some instances have been taken completely out of context.
‘However, clearly Yael has been upset on occasion by the spirited enthusiasm I generally bring to my work.
‘I sincerely and deeply regret if I have caused her any distress. This, most certainly, has never been my intention. When we performed in The Diary Of A Madman eight years ago, I believe we engaged in a journey as artistic comrades.’
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