Sex charge ‘True Lies’
Dushku: I was 12, he assaulted me Stunt big: Not true, I am in shock
ACTRESS Eliza Dushku claims a top Hollywood stunt coordinator stripped and sexually assaulted her when she was just 12 and working on the movie “True Lies.”
The shocking allegation prompted an instant denial from stuntman Joel Kramer, who deemed himself “absolutely, astoundingly flabbergasted” by Dushku’s detailed account of the alleged 1994 encounter.
“I remember what I was wearing (my favorite white denim shorts, thankfully, secured enough for me to keep on),” she wrote on Facebook. “I remember how he laid me down on the bed, wrapped me with his gigantic writhing body, and rubbed all over me.”
Dushku said that Kramer had lured her into his hotel room during a break in the movie shoot, where the pre-teen actress played the daughter of co-stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.
According to Dushku, Kramer invited her for a swim at the hotel pool where the film crew was housed during the shoot.
She then found herself alone with Kramer in his room as he pulled down the shades and exited the bathroom with only a small hand towel covering his genitals, she said.
“He spoke these words: ‘You’re not going to sleep on me now sweetie, stop pretending you’re sleeping,’ as he rubbed harder and faster against my catatonic body,” recounted Dushku — now 37 and a successful television and movie actress.
“When he was ‘finished,’ he suggested, ‘I think we should be careful’ (about telling anyone), he meant. I was 12, he was 36.”
Schwarzenegger surfaced Saturday to support Dushku’s allegations. “Of course i believe @elizadushku,” he tweeted.
A rattled Kramer agrees that the work on the action film was done in Miami, but disputes almost everything else alleged by the actress.
“I don't know where this comes from. I am absolutely floored. She was a sweet kid. I am absolutely in shock right now,” he said, adding he was shaking because he was so upset. “I don’t know why she would do this to me. It is not true.
“What person in their right mind would do that to a minor on a film set I’m working on?”
Dushku’s account went into further detail about a cab ride back to her hotel with Kramer, who, seh said, placed her on his lap and “grew aroused again.”
Kramer confirmed that Dushku visited the hotel pool, but claimed the entire crew treated her like a family member. Dushku was staying with her parents at a nearby hotel, according to the stunt boss.
“If I remember correctly, she wasn’t that far away, all of us were at one hotel and her and her parents were at another and she came over one afternoon swimming,” he said. “That was that,” he continued. “(The assault’s) something I would never do.”
Kramer said the taxi cab ride she recalled never happened and he instead drove Dushku home personally in a car provided by the movie company.
“Absolutely crazy,” he continued. “I just don’t understand it. Be nice to somebody, treat them good and this is what happens.”
When asked why Dushku would make up such a detailed account of his actions, Kramer told the Daily News, “It’s almost over-detailed.”
He also said that a nurse on the set confided the young actress had a crush on him.
The “Bring it On” actress countered that people on set were aware of Kramer’s behavior and that he even nicknamed the young girl “Jailbait.”
“Why speak out now?” wrote Dushku. “I was 12, he was 36. It is incomprehensible. Why didn’t an adult on the set find his predatory advances strange — that over-the-top special attention he gave me.”
Kramer declined to say if he would pursue legal action, telling The News that he just “wouldn’t know where to go from here.”
“I think she has just ruined my career... what’s left of it,” he said. “I never, ever, did anything like that to her.”
Kramer started working as a stuntman and coordinator in 1979, most recently working on “Blade Runner 2049,” “Westworld” and the TV series “Star Trek.”
Dushku said her acting career has been a double-edged sword.
“Hollywood has been very good to me in many ways,” she wrote. “Nevertheless, Hollywood also failed to protect me, a child actress. I like to think of myself as a tough Boston chick.
“Through the years, brave fans have regularly shared with me how some of my characters have given them the conviction to stand up to their abusers. Now it is you who give me strength and conviction. I hope that speaking out will help other victims and protect against future abuse.”