New York Post

Rage of Page at ‘X’ director

- By BOB FREDERICKS

Actress Ellen Page tore into “X-Men: The Last Stand” director Brett Ratner on Friday, accusing him of sexually harassing her and outing her as a lesbian before she wanted to go public.

“He looked at a woman standing next to me, 10 years my senior, pointed to me and said: ‘You should f--k her to make her realize she’s gay.’ He was the film’s director, Brett Ratner,” Page wrote in a lengthy, emotional Facebook post. “He said this about me during a cast and crew ‘ meet and greet’ before we began filming, ‘ X Men: The Last Stand.’ I was 18 years old.”

The crude remark left her speechless, said Page, now 30, who played Kitty Pryde in the X-Men series. “I was a young adult who had not yet come out to myself,” Page wrote.

“I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak. I felt violated when this happened. I looked down at my feet, didn’t say a word and watched as no one else did, either,” Page continued.

“He ‘outed’ me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic. This public, aggressive outing left me with longstandi­ng feelings of shame, one of the most destructiv­e results of homophobia.”

Actress Anna Paquin, who costarred with Page in the flick, backed up Ellen’s claim.

“I was there when that comment was made. I stand with you,” she wrote on Twitter.

Paquin, 35, said she didn’t come forward earlier because she was all too familiar with the perils young women face in the film industry. “I’ve been in this victimgroo­ming industry since before I hit puberty,” Paquin said.

The Canada-born Page said she wasn’t the only target of Ratner’s abuse. “I proceeded to watch him on set say degrading things to women,” she wrote.

Six other women, including actress Olivia Munn, have also accused Ratner of sexual harassment and misconduct — charges he has strenuousl­y denied.

His lawyer, Martin Singer, did not immediatel­y respond to requests for comment by The Post on the Page allegation­s.

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