Hey, just a bunch of accused sexual predators here, hanging out together, racking up so many accusations of sexual assault that between them, it’s impossible to keep track.
In its now book-length series of investigations into sexual assault allegations in Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times has published a portrait of director/producer Brett Ratner and Def Jam co-founder Russell Simmons’s father-son-alleged rapist relationship, which began when Ratner “first curried [Simmons’s] favor by furnishing him with models after they met in 1987.” This, according to Simmons himself. As a then-music video director, Ratner had easy access to models in need of work.
Ratner has already been accused of sexual misconduct by ten women and others off-the-record to the LA Times. Earlier this month, Variety reported that in 2001, an unidentified 29-year-old woman filed a police report against the two of them for sexual battery. Ratner’s attorney told the LA Times that the episode “was a minor thing.”
Roman Polanski was another of Ratner’s “father figures,” says the Times. Together, Simmons and Ratner are also friends with James Toback, who has over 300 allegations against him.
Because the stories are so numerous, here’s a synopsis:
1) Actress Keri Claussen Khalighi tells the Los Angeles Times that in 1991, when she was 17, Simmons forced oral sex on her while she begged Ratner for help as he watched. She claims now that last year, Simmons apologized in person.
2) Former model Tanya Reid alleges that in 1994, when she was an 18-year-old virgin, Simmons called her hotel room and told her to come to his so that Ratner could hold her down while she gave Simmons oral sex. Later, she claims, Ratner invited her to his room where he took out his dick and forced oral sex on her.
3) Yogi Brittny McCarthy says that in 2008, James Toback approached her in a bookstore and brought her to Ratner’s private sex lodge where he humped her leg until he ejaculated.
4) There is a sex lodge. At least two incidents allegedly took place at Ratner’s Hillhaven Lodge, which he refers to as “a private playground.”
5) Model and actress Jaymee Ong claims that, when she was 21, Ratner took her to aforementioned playground under the pretense of a party, and then brought her into his room where he took off his pants and told her to “Just touch it.” She would not, so he masturbated, allegedly.
6) On a flight to Prague, producer Shelly Clippard says that Ratner made sexually explicit comments and showed her nude photos of his then-girlfriend.
7) Actress Sarah Shahi claims that on the set of Rush Hour 3, Ratner humped her. She alleges that Jackie Chan witnessed similar scenarios and did nothing. She added, though, that she kept in touch with flirty messages to “[play] the Hollywood game like every other actress.”
The general details were apparently known, even. The LA Times has dug up an account by Playboy writer Touré, who treats this behavior as a little off-color anecdote. In his 2005 book Never Drank the Kool-Aid, he writes:
I first met [Simmons] in 1994 at Time Café in downtown Manhattan. I was there to interview him for a magazine story. We spoke for twenty minutes and then his partner in crime Brett Ratner, then a little hiphop video director, now a Hollywood director, showed up smiling like the boy who’s successfully stolen cookies from the kitchen. After a few minutes Russell left the table without a word–back then he lived in a gigantic apartment above Time Café–and didn’t return for thirty minutes. When he came back we finished the interview. Funny thing is, he’d showered. Later I found out that Simmons had gone up to his place and had sex with a sumptuous model whom Ratner had just finished with, then washed up and came back. But I wasn’t surprised: back then for Russell Simmons loose sex with a hot model in the middle of the afternoon was an average day.
In his own 2001 book, Simmons writes that when he was starting out, he moved his Rush Artist Management office to an apartment on Park Avenue. “This was very convenient for me but not so good for some of my employees, since I used to have sex with girls during business hours. That’s how I was living.”
Addendum:
Touré goes on to say that while Simmons was once “hypersexual and immensely self-centered,” ten years later “he’s become patient, spiritual, and almost calm.” The 2001 investigation has been dropped due to insufficient evidence.
As for Ratner, he is currently under investigation by Warner Brothers after it has cut ties with his production company RatPac Entertainment, which has recently co-financed a large chunk of their tentpoles. Brittny McCarthy has recently filed two police reports about the alleged 2008 incident with Toback at Ratner’s lodge.
I am going to soak my brain in laundry detergent for a little bit.
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