Filmmaker Haggis accused of rape
LOS ANGELES • A civil lawsuit charging Canadian Paul Haggis with raping a publicist has prompted three additional women to come forward with their own sexual misconduct accusations against the Oscar-winning filmmaker, including another publicist who says he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her.
One of the other women speaking out told The Associated Press that Haggis, a native of London, Ont., tried to sexually assault her. “I need to be inside you,” she recalled him saying, before she managed to run away.
Another of the new accusers said Haggis held down her arms, forcibly kissed her on a street corner, then followed her into a taxi.
Christine Lepera, attorney for the 64-year-old screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby and Crash, said, “He didn’t rape anybody.”
Haggis denied the original rape allegation in a countercomplaint to the lawsuit, and said the accuser and her lawyer had demanded a US$9 million payment to avoid legal action, which he characterized as extortion.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, filed Dec. 15 in Manhattan, is identified in court papers as Haleigh Breest. The other three women subsequently came forward to Breest’s New York attorneys. They spoke to the AP on the condition that they not be identified for fear of retribution. The AP generally does not identify people who say they were the victims of sexual assault.
On Friday afternoon, Breest’s attorneys filed an amended complaint that includes details of the allegations lodged by the three new accusers.
Meanwhile, playwright and author Ann-Marie MacDonald says she experienced “exploitation, bullying and harassment” while working as an actress with Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre Company in 2009.
MacDonald has published a letter on Facebook recounting her experiences while staging Top Girl, a high-profile production launched by one of the country’s leading theatre companies.
MacDonald says she decided to release the letter publicly after hearing about the sexual assault and harassment allegations levelled against Soulpepper founding director Albert Schultz.
In the letter, MacDonald alleges Soulpepper leaders “laughed off ” concerns over a fundraising event where dinners with female cast members were auctioned off.
She says the cast did not know about the fundraising idea in advance and there was “a sense of outrage and disbelief ” and “a strong wish” to skip the dinners, although actresses were concerned about repercussions.
MacDonald says Soulpepper ultimately issued an apology to the cast, although the dinners went ahead.