Douglas fondled himself in front of me, says author
A FORMER employee of Michael Douglas yesterday alleged she ran away from the star after he sexually harassed her.
Author and journalist Susan Braudy claimed the 73-year-old star unbuckled his belt, put his hands down his trousers and fondled himself in front of her while she worked for him in the late 1980s.
Going public with the allegations for the first time, Miss Braudy, 76, said she was left feeling ‘humiliated’ and claimed the Fatal Attraction actor used ‘nearconstant profane and sexually charged dialogue’.
Appearing on US television, she said of the two-time Oscar winner: ‘He thought he was the king of the world and that he could humiliate me without any repercussions.’
Miss Braudy, who worked as a production executive for Douglas’s Stonebridge Productions for three years when she was in her 40s, also alleged he commented on her body, which made her then wear loose, dark clothing.
She claimed the actor used sexual language in front of her, including discussing affairs, while she was running the firm’s New York office. And in the most serious allegation she said Douglas performed a sex act in her presence during a one-on-one script meeting in his Manhattan apartment in 1989. ‘I peered at him and saw he’d inserted both hands into his unzipped pants,’ she said.
She described running to the door, adding: ‘I was surprised I wasn’t falling to pieces even though I was humiliated.
‘I realised he thought he could do anything he wanted because he was so much more powerful than I was. Michael ran barefoot after me to the elevator, zipping his fly and buckling his belt. “Hey, thank you, you’re good. You helped me, thank you, thank you.”’
Miss Braudy said her working relationship with the Wall Street star went downhill after the alleged incident.
‘When he sweetly asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement, I knew Michael was preparing to fire me,’ she said, describing how, with her lawyer’s guidance, she left the company without signing an agreement.
Douglas, who has been married to actress Catherine Zeta-Jones for 17 years, pre-empted the claims earlier this month by releasing a statement which described them as ‘a complete lie’. The father of three said he wanted to speak out because his teenage children were ‘really upset’.
Miss Braudy claimed that she told people after the alleged incident, including Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff, who confirmed this to the Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Fire and Fury is the recently-published account of Donald Trump’s White House. Douglas said on January 10 that he felt ‘the need to get ahead’ when he became aware a former employee was going to release harassment claims. He said he was told the story would be printed in the Hollywood Reporter without evidence or ‘corroboration’.
In an interview with US entertainment website Deadline, Douglas said he was ‘floored’ when he found out the allegations were being made.
He said: ‘It’s extremely painful. I pride myself on my reputation in this business. I don’t have skeletons in my closet, or anyone else who’s coming out or saying this. I’m bewildered why, after 32 years, this is coming out now.’
Douglas admitted using occasional ‘colourful language’ but said the suggestion he had performed a sex act in front of the woman was ‘something I’ve only heard about the last year’.
Miss Zeta-Jones, 48, has also spoken out, saying she supports her husband and the #MeToo movement about sexual harassment in Hollywood.
Miss Braudy, a former vice president of East Coast Production at Warner Brothers, is best known as the author of two non-fiction books, Between Marriage and Divorce: A Woman’s Diary which was published in 1975, and Family Circle: The Boudins and the Aristocracy of the Left, which was published in 2003.