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Predator and Prey: Assault, harassment, and other aggressions in the entertainment industry


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3 minutes ago, Zella said:

R Kelly's trial went to the jury. In the closing arguments, Kelly's lawyer actually compared him to MLK, and apparently several people actually said "oh no" out loud in court when they saw what direction the attorney was going.

Not only MLK but Hugh Hefner and Mike Pence. 

I  mean....

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Cannick also described Kelly’s affinity for younger females as normal. “He prefers, in some instances, the May-to-October relationship. Older man, somewhat younger woman. Some people just like it that way,” Cannick said. “Some people also just like kinky sex.”

It is not funny.. it really isn't... but I was reading this account of the lawyer's closing statement laughing my ass off.

At this point you have to wonder between the half-assed witnesses for the defense and this tone-deaf, quite frankly hysterical closing... are they trying to throw this case?

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31 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

 

Not only MLK but Hugh Hefner and Mike Pence. 

I  mean....

It is not funny.. it really isn't... but I was reading this account of the lawyer's closing statement laughing my ass off.

At this point you have to wonder between the half-assed witnesses for the defense and this tone-deaf, quite frankly hysterical closing... are they trying to throw this case?

Yes the summary of that closing argument was a wild ride and unintentionally hilarious. I can't tell if they're that inept and/or desperate or they're intentionally throwing it, but it has to be one of the most bizarre defenses I've ever read about for a celebrity who has the money for good attorneys. 

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I'm not going to read what R Kelly's lawyer said in his closing argument, but I really hope that it's not as ridiculous as everyone is making it sound. It's not good if R Kelly gets a new trial because he can prove attorney negligence.

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On 9/25/2021 at 12:45 AM, andromeda331 said:

I hope the jury convicts R. Kelly but he's been let off the hook before. Despite mount of evidence before too. I'm trying not to get my hopes up.

One good thing is that even if he gets off the hook in this trial he will just be transferred to Chicago for his trial there that has been on hold. Then he still has to face charges in Minnesota. Even if he isn’t convicted of anything he won’t be living outside of a cell for a year or more. 

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30 minutes ago, Zella said:

I'm glad the jury soundly rejected the bullshit his attorneys spewed in the trial. 

Same here and I'm glad that the jury didn't get intimidated by Mr. Kelly's stardom or fandom- as IMO, it appeared to have happened with the latter Michael Jackson trial with screaming hordes of fans literally on the other side of the wall from said jury! 

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16 hours ago, BetterButter said:
 

 

Hope he gets more than the minimum (10 years), 30+ years is what he should get. Glad they finally got him. Better late than never but dam he was able to ruin so many lives and live the best years of his life unscathed.  Hopefully he lives the next 20-30 years in misery. 
 

On 9/24/2021 at 3:38 PM, Zella said:

I've ever read about for a celebrity who has the money for good attorneys. 

Rumor has it he only has $2 million to his name. He doesn’t own any of his masters. Apparently he was swindled out of them years ago. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy. So the rumors may be true. If true, he probably couldn’t afford a good attorney. 

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Just FYI but most of those sites purporting to show celebrity wealth are completely full of shit. I wouldn't base any guesses on celebrity wealth off of the unsourced information they provide. 

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2 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

He said at some point that he was $2 million in debt, so a bunch of site are listing his net worth as -$2 million.

Considering he was put in jail at one point during his legal issues for being unable to pay child support he is probably way more that $2 million in debt. When he was trying to get bail last year he said that he didn’t have the money to flee because he owed nearly $2M to the IRS and had a tax lien on his income. At the same time the prosecutors said that he had earned $200,000 in royalties in four months. So he earns money but also has a lot of debt and has to pay his legal fees. 

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Elvira's autobiography reveals sexual assault by basketball superstar Wilt Chamberlain.

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"Why didn't I try to scream, fight back, or get away? When a seven- foot-one, 300-pound man has his hand wrapped around your neck, there's really not a lot you can do," she writes in the book. "Should I have reported him to the police? Are you kidding? What chance do you think a former showgirl/ out-of-work actress would have against a sports superstar?"...

"I just kept it quiet and didn't say anything for my whole life," she tells PEOPLE. "And the sad thing was he was a friend. He was a friend for so many years who had made it even feel worse and creepier and like I was an idiot."

The Elvira's Movie Macabre host credits the Me Too movement with helping her grapple with the assault decades later. "I didn't tell anybody about that story. It's shocking, embarrassing, traumatizing and I really kept that a secret from everyone," Peterson says.

 

 

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I’m past being surprised that people like her think like this but I am continuously surprised by how open they will be about it. 

Same. Not surprised at all but WHY open your mouth? Or, in this case, put it in writing so it can live on forever??? Baffling.

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10 hours ago, Dani said:

Katie Couric: Matt Lauer was a ‘decent’ man I felt ‘heartless to abandon’

For some bizarre reason Katie Couric has decided to out herself as a despicable human being in her own memoir. Apparently she also attacks a litany of female journalists in her book. I’m past being surprised that people like her think like this but I am continuously surprised by how open they will be about it. 

And she has two daughters! Would she truly have wanted a colleague   behave  towards either of them the way Mr. Lauer evidently behaved towards towards virtually everyone besides her?

Well, at least this puts to rest the notion that somehow she was pressured by higher ups to have sung his praises. It seems she's a human stinkbomb all on her own accord (and maybe could join Miss Pompeo). 

Edited by Blergh
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OK, Katie, I get that he's been your friend for many years and there's some conflicted loyalty there, and you never saw that side of him, even if he did "pinch you on your ass a lot."  But what he did was pretty well documented, so if you really do want to keep supporting him (for whatever reason) there's better ways to do it.

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6 hours ago, Blergh said:

And she has two daughters! Would she truly have wanted a colleague   behave  towards either of them the way Mr. Lauer evidently behaved towards towards virtually everyone besides her?

She probably doesn't think her daughters have anything to worry about, because they won't be "asking for it."

(I don't think that.)

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Katie Couric may have also spiked Ashleigh Banfield's career at NBC.

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Ashleigh appeared Friday on "TMZ Live" and reacted to a passage from Couric's new memoir, in which she wrote, "For a minute there, Ashleigh Banfield was the next big thing; I'd heard her father was telling anyone who'd listen that she was going to replace me. In that environment, mentorship sometimes felt like self-sabotage."

Fact is ... Ashleigh was a big star at the Peacock network. Her 9/11 coverage stood out from the pack, and NBC rewarded her with her own primetime show.

But suddenly, without explanation, in 2002 her show was canceled and she says things just unraveled from there, to the point they took away her office and put a desk in a tape closet, which is where she sat until NBC got rid of her....As for whether she believes Katie was behind the sabotage, Ashleigh's a class act and wouldn't say directly, but she did say she heard rumors that's exactly what happened ... as she said, "I got a sense" Katie was the culprit.

 

 

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12 hours ago, Lugal said:

OK, Katie, I get that he's been your friend for many years and there's some conflicted loyalty there, and you never saw that side of him, even if he did "pinch you on your ass a lot."  But what he did was pretty well documented, so if you really do want to keep supporting him (for whatever reason) there's better ways to do it.

I wonder if Miss Couric ever shared Mr. Lauer's gripping her posterior at work with either of her husbands- and, if so, did either of them laugh it off like she did or did she barely keep one or both from punching Mr. Lauer's jaw?

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Internet Slams Disney Guest Who Gropes Gaston Actor in Viral Video

Groping people is just not okay.   The man was just working and the woman didn’t seem to understand she was being inappropriate.   

It made me think of the harassment experienced by the actor who played Podrick where female fans would just grab him.  
Daniel Portman, AKA Podrick From "Game Of Thrones," Says Fans Sexually Assaulted Him

I feel like some people think men always want sexual attention even from strangers and that somehow they can’t be harassed too.  I don’t think men want to be groped because of their work anymore than women do.

Edited by Luckylyn
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Caveat that I'm going to be very heteronormative but I think men's bodies are generally less sexualized. Where the culture needs to advance is not that a man's chest is the same as a woman's chest or that women should also walk around topless but that no one should be touched without consent.

I'm not big on touching other people so this is already somewhat foreign to me. But it's like... touching someone on the arm or shoulder for comfort. Or immediately going in for a hug. Or touching (usually) a woman on the back or waist as she passes. Slapping someone on the back in encouragement. Sometimes it's predatory and sometimes it's unthinking. People socialized with a lot of casual touching might not recognize how weird it is. I would contrast it to someone putting out their hand if you look like you need help getting out of a car or climbing stairs. Because that is an offer of help and it gives you a choice. 

It would have been easy enough for that woman to ask the actor playing Gaston "can we pose with my hands on your chest" and to abide by his answer but she was treating him like a living prop and not someone at work. 

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It would be impossible to find now but when Blurred Lines came out (and people were criticizing the song/video) wasn't she everywhere saying how empowering it was and something, something choice feminism?

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On 10/4/2021 at 6:51 AM, ifionlyknew said:

I swear at this point I am shocked when a man isn't accused of inappropriate behavior.

Especially one who chooses to launch his singing career with an ode to rape culture (Pharrell Williams eventually reversed course and admitted the song was gross, Emily Ratajkowski has now revealed what happened in the course of filming a video she at the time described as "We took something that on paper sounded really sexist and misogynistic and made it more interesting, which is why women love that video and why it became a viral success", but did Mr. "I was quoted out of context [when I said] 'What a pleasure it is to degrade a woman. I've never gotten to do that before'" Thicke ever see the light?).

It's important to note when quoting Ratajkowski's account that she goes on to say the director - notably, a woman (Diane Martel, who has corroborated the story), unlike most men who shrug it off and keep silent - yelled "What the hell are you doing?!" at Thicke, asked Ratajkowski if she was okay, and called an immediate wrap.

Edited by Bastet
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On 10/2/2021 at 7:40 PM, aradia22 said:

Caveat that I'm going to be very heteronormative but I think men's bodies are generally less sexualized. Where the culture needs to advance is not that a man's chest is the same as a woman's chest or that women should also walk around topless but that no one should be touched without consent.

This is a male perspective, but I think there's some old-school sexism involved in thinking women are considered "weaker" than men, and are therefore physically non-threatening.  So men complaining about women acting inappropriately are also considered weaker, which is why a lot of men just put up with it.  While men in general tend to have greater upper body strength, anyone who's ever met people knows that an adult human, regardless of gender, can cause serious injury when they put their minds to it.

The other problem goes back to antiquated notions of sexual desire, with the belief that women don't really have sexual desire (also one of the tenants of rape culture in that women must be coerced).  So therefore women acting inappropriately toward men is "all in good fun" (I've heard women say that exact phrase) as opposed to male desire which is regarded as inherently predatory.

I agree that the core issue is consent and that has to be central to any discussion.

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I'm really disturbed by the soccer league situation. These are adults, not children (like the gymnastics athletes), and we are used to seeing them as empowered. And yet even there, they were abused and their accounts ignored. I am really blown away by how riddled every single sector is with this shit.

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R. Kelly's channels have been removed, but his videos are still available on that platform.

Sage Steele suspended from ESPN for saying a lot of stupid stuff, most of when we can't discuss because Forum rules. But I do want to bring attention to the part where she slut shames female journalists:

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She commented on sexism in journalism, saying that women "know what [they're] doing" when they wear certain clothes.

“So when you dress like that, I'm not saying you deserve the gross comments, but you know what you're doing when you're putting that outfit on, too,” Steele said. “Like, women are smart, so don't play coy and put it all on the guys.”

She's already issued a groveling apology because her job is on the line, but no one is going to forget.

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15 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

R. Kelly's channels have been removed, but his videos are still available on that platform.

Sage Steele suspended from ESPN for saying a lot of stupid stuff, most of when we can't discuss because Forum rules. But I do want to bring attention to the part where she slut shames female journalists:

She's already issued a groveling apology because her job is on the line, but no one is going to forget.

Was she just trying to look cool to Jay Cutler and those who listen to his podcast? The only thing interesting about Cutler was the meme of photoshopping cigarettes into every single one of his photos and how it looked believable.

The culture at ESPN is likely tough for women, and especially women of color, but this is a big bag of UGH. 

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I read the article, and she essentially apologized for the controversy, not the content of her statements. So, she's unhappy she got suspended is all I got from that, not that she has any regret for what she said.

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On 10/7/2021 at 12:42 AM, Vermicious Knid said:

R. Kelly's channels have been removed, but his videos are still available on that platform.

Sage Steele suspended from ESPN for saying a lot of stupid stuff, most of when we can't discuss because Forum rules. But I do want to bring attention to the part where she slut shames female journalists:

She's already issued a groveling apology because her job is on the line, but no one is going to forget.

And sadly the sell of his music spiked after the guilty verdict. Hopefully this is temporary and sales will drastically fall soon, if they haven’t already.

R. Kelly’s Sales Soar 500% After Sex-Trafficking Verdict

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15 hours ago, Enero said:

And sadly the sell of his music spiked after the guilty verdict. Hopefully this is temporary and sales will drastically fall soon, if they haven’t already.

R. Kelly’s Sales Soar 500% After Sex-Trafficking Verdict

I read over on Twitter that at least one of R. Kelly's victims sued him in civil court and was awarded a rather large judgment.  He then declared bankruptcy to avoid paying all of it, so any album sales would go towards paying this debt and not to R. Kelly himself.  I really hope this is true.

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