Natasha Henstridge Details Sexual Assault Allegation Against Brett Ratner To Megyn Kelly
Natasha Henstridge appeared on Megyn Kelly Today to talk about her allegations of sexual harassment ..
Natasha Henstridge appeared on Megyn Kelly Today to talk about her allegations of sexual harassment against Brett Ratner.
Henstridge is one of eight women who spoke about Ratner in a Los Angeles Times report. But LAT says that the number of women who have come forward to claim they’ve been harassed by the director has reached 45, Kelly told viewers.
Henstridge said her encounter with Ratner, years ago, happened when she was 19, modeling, and doing TV commercials. She only knew Ratner through mutual friends. One night she joined friends at an apartment near hers, to watch movies. She assumed the apartment was Ratner’s. After falling asleep while watching the movie, she woke up to realize she was alone with him in the apartment.
At first she thought he was merely “coming on strong” and “trying to convince me there was something between us, until I made more of an effort to get out and that’s when I realized he wasn’t playing around any more,” she described to Kelly.
“He got very aggressive.”
She acknowledged a lot of people have asked, “How does somebody force you into oral sex?”
“When you are afraid of somebody, when you physically don’t know what… they’re capable of doing, you submit and I submitted.”
After it was over, she said, she remained “pretty terrified” and ran home “feeling horribly ashamed, but also feeling dirty,” while “realizing I had nothing to do with it. I had no say in it; it was just a horrible situation.”
Asked by Kelly how it felt over the years to watch Ratner’s career take off, she responded, “Seeing him catapult into fame, I thought, ‘Wow, life really isn’t fair’.”
Kelly noted Henstridge also had a run-in with Harvey Weinstein. “Yeah, lucky me,” the actress responded, describing without detail a meeting with Weinstein at her hotel, during Sundance, after which, she said, “one thing led to another… he did some terrible things there and came on to me repeatedly.”
“I don’t know what you say on daytime television,” she said, hesitating.
“Did he pleasure himself in front of you?” Kelly asked, helping her out.
“Yes… I was then stuck in a room, he tried to get into the room… I did manage to avoid an actual physical attack by him,” Henstridge said.
“Just listening to you, it makes you feel outraged,” Kelly responded. “How many times does an actress need to go through this to be in films in Hollywood? Is this the price of doing business?!”
“We have be lulled into an idea this is kind of normal,” Henstridge acknowledged.
Kelly noted both men have denied all allegations against them and either threatened or filed lawsuits in some cases.
That’s what keeps women silent, Henstridge said. “They’re as scared as I am, and I was, two weeks ago coming out about this. You’re afraid you’re going to get sued…by somebody with a gazillion dollars. And you’re going to have your name be dragged through the mud and you’re going to be lied about.”
