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

[Zella]

5 hours ago, Crashcourse said:

For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, I am not surprised.  He always came off as a hyperactive little shit bird to me.  He always tried to upstage his guests with his antics.

Yes I was always appalled at how annoying he was doing interviews with celebrities. I actually refuse to watch his interviews with famous people I like because of his cloying tone and how often he interrupts and deflects back to himself. A lot of them seem irritated talking to him. Tracy Morgan also apparently threatened him on SNL about his corpsing, which Morgan said was Fallon doing it for attention rather than because he was genuinely breaking. 

I'd also heard the stuff about him being involved with what Horatio Sanz did, so to find out he's a nasty piece of work in addition to being annoying, isn't surprising to me either. 

[Trini]

Apparently Fallon apologized to staff (don't know how much that helps *now*): https://deadline.com/2023/09/jimmy-fallon-apologizes-to-the-tonight-show-staff-after-bombshell-report-1235539929/

[Jaded]

3 hours ago, Trini said:

Apparently Fallon apologized to staff (don't know how much that helps *now*): https://deadline.com/2023/09/jimmy-fallon-apologizes-to-the-tonight-show-staff-after-bombshell-report-1235539929/

If he worded it like the description in that article it wouldn't do much if anything to make me believe he meant it.

The only thing I've liked about his tenure as the host of The Tonight Show is that he or someone BTS decided not to continue with the blacklisting of Joan Rivers. Jay Leno said that the reason he kept the ban in place was out of respect for Johnny Carson. After 26 years Joan was on Jimmy's first episode of The Tonight show which was about 7 months before she died. She was part of a bit of people coming on to put $100 bills on his desk over a supposed bet about him being the new host. She returned at a later time for an actual interview.

[andromeda331]

11 hours ago, Jaded said:

Danny Masterson has just been sentenced he received 30yrs to life for rape. There were victim impact statements too. Waiting for the person I follow and watch to do a summary of what happened inside the courtroom.

 

11 hours ago, BetterButter said:

 

That's great news!

[Kel Varnsen]

20 hours ago, anna0852 said:

Allegations about workplace toxicity at the Tonight Show. 
 

https://tvline.com/news/jimmy-fallon-rolling-stone-story-tonight-show-toxic-workplace-allegations-1235039649/

So a show like the Tonight Show would be full of union workers. So I am wondering, when we hear stories like this why we never hear comments from the various unions about protecting their members. Like the WGA is on strike for better pay, residuals etc, but if Fallon is treating his writers really badly do they do anything? If Fallon is a WGA member too (I don't know) can they strip him of his membership?

[bluegirl147]

13 hours ago, Zella said:

I'd also heard the stuff about him being involved with what Horatio Sanz did, so to find out he's a nasty piece of work in addition to being annoying, isn't surprising to me either. 

When the Horatio Sanz story broke (if you can call it that. It got very little media attention) and I heard Jimmy Fallon was at the very least around when it was happening I thought I totally believe Jimmy would be around that and not care what was happening.  There appears to be a very toxic atmosphere around male comedians.  Not all of course but enough you start to think it's handwaved away as they were just joking and them getting away with it. 

Edited September 8, 2023 by bluegirl147

[Jaded]

This clip from Conan's old Late Night show on NBC has been making the rounds on Twitter since Danny's sentence yesterday. Listen to what Conan says at the very end...
 

 

[Jaded]

Letters from Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and others on behalf of Danny Masterson to Judge Olmedo

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jaded said:

Letters from Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and others on behalf of Danny Masterson to Judge Olmedo

 

It pisses me off so much I’m instead going to focus on the fact that the judge read those, listened to the victim impact statements and gave Masterson the maximum sentence. And the names that aren’t on the list like Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, Wilmer Valderama and Busy Phillips. 

[bluegirl147]

3 hours ago, Jaded said:

Letters from Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and others on behalf of Danny Masterson to Judge Olmedo

They have said and done various things over the years that have made me think I don't like these people. But this is just so gross.  Kutcher is now going to have zero credibility when he advocates against human trafficking.

[Lugal]

4 hours ago, Jaded said:

Letters from Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, and others on behalf of Danny Masterson to Judge Olmedo

OK, I can kinda understand them, they're sticking up for a long-time friend and they never saw that side of him (or chose not to see it).  And it is tragic that his daughter will grow up never seeing her father.  But there is one person that is responsible for all of that: Danny Masterson.  He hurt the Jane Does, their families and now his own family.  I really hope he takes the next 30 years to reflect on that.

[supposebly]

43 minutes ago, Lugal said:

And it is tragic that his daughter will grow up never seeing her father. 

Maybe she also would like to grow up with a father that's not a rapist. I stopped reading eventually, so I can't remember how old his daughter is at the moment, but do these people really not think further than their own perspective?

[Guest]

My takeaway from the letters are that Kunis and Kutcher don’t believe he is guilty. They, and most of the others who wrote statements, emphasized that Danny Masterson was anti-drugs. They both credit him with their not using drugs. The judge allowing the prosecution to focus more on the belief that the victims were drugged which was a very important part of the trial. It wasn’t allowed in the first trial and is expected to be something that will come up in his appeal. 

Kutcher doesn’t really surprise me. Demi Moore’s book paints a pretty bad picture of him. He really benefitted from the “meant-to-be” angle of his relationship with Kunis. 

The only one that really disappointed me was Debra Jo Rupp. But her statement was pretty mild compared to the others. 

During The 70’s Show so much was made Topher Grace being standoffish with the other kids on the show. He was really painted to be the problem when it turns out he just didn’t want to be around the Scientology crap Masterson was peddling. 

[Notabug]

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

Maybe she also would like to grow up with a father that's not a rapist. I stopped reading eventually, so I can't remember how old his daughter is at the moment, but do these people really not think further than their own perspective?

I believe the daughter is around 9 years old currently.  I agree, having her convicted rapist father in prison for the foreseeable future is not the worst part of this for the kid.  If she doesn't understand what he did just yet, someday, she will.

[Blergh]

1 hour ago, supposebly said:

Maybe she also would like to grow up with a father that's not a rapist. I stopped reading eventually, so I can't remember how old his daughter is at the moment, but do these people really not think further than their own perspective?

Nailed it! They sure seemed to have the mindset of ' I think he was nice to me and my loved ones and I couldn't care less that he raped other women so let him totally off the hook because why should you care about  anyone besides me and my loved ones!'

[Blergh]

22 minutes ago, Notabug said:

I believe the daughter is around 9 years old currently.  I agree, having her convicted rapist father in prison for the foreseeable future is not the worst part of this for the kid.  If she doesn't understand what he did just yet, someday, she will.

IMO, one of the most infuriating things about the entire letterbombing of that judge was how almost to a person, everyone trying to get Mr. Masterson off the hook used (and I mean used) his young daughter as a human poster- but I'll bet none of them ever said to him ' how could you  put your own daughter through this by doing such horrible things to innocent women?'

[FancyRhubarb]

7 hours ago, Dani said:

My takeaway from the letters are that Kunis and Kutcher don’t believe he is guilty. They, and most of the others who wrote statements, emphasized that Danny Masterson was anti-drugs. They both credit him with their not using drugs. The judge allowing the prosecution to focus more on the belief that the victims were drugged which was a very important part of the trial. It wasn’t allowed in the first trial and is expected to be something that will come up in his appeal. 

That's a really interesting point. I took it as just more Scientology crap because of their obsession with drugs, whether they are prescribed or recreational. Because as we all know, smoking a joint is inordinately worse than raping 5 women. But maybe his lawyer told them to highlight that for appeal issues.

I wonder what was redacted in Bijou's letter. It was obviously related to her kidney issues, would the judge hide that to protect her privacy? Or maybe she spoke about her own drug history which would go against the Masterson party line. 

[Blergh]

I'm a bit surprised how many of the correspondents felt inclined to spell out their membership to COS.  I wonder if they truly thought that that would have helped Mr. Masterson avoid prison time for his legal conviction.

[Bastet]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

I'm a bit surprised how many of the correspondents felt inclined to spell out their membership to COS.

The only laugh I got reading those letters was at the one brother starting out with "I am not a Scientologist".

[Jaded]

Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis Explain Why They Wrote Letters of Support for Danny Masterson

[Vermicious Knid]

Wow. They wrote about what a wonderful, supportive person he is, but claim “They were intended for the judge to read and not to undermine the testimony of the victims or re-traumatize them in any way,” Kutcher added. “We would never want to do that. And we’re sorry if that has taken place.”

Except yeah, dude, you totally undermined their testimony and shat all over them. 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

Wow. They wrote about what a wonderful, supportive person he is, but claim “They were intended for the judge to read and not to undermine the testimony of the victims or re-traumatize them in any way,” Kutcher added. “We would never want to do that. And we’re sorry if that has taken place.”

Except yeah, dude, you totally undermined their testimony and shat all over them. 

Yep. She just seemed pissed. And a general guideline for anyone making a statement like this should be that broad language about supporting or apologizing to all victims of SA just makes it clear you don’t believe the specific victims involved. It’s a largely meaningless thing to say and literally the least you can do. 

Ashton specifically said that Masterson isn’t a threat to society which is something that can never be said about a proven rapist. And the women have been victimized through harassment continually since the assaults by and in Masterson’s name. Alanna Masterson (Tara on The Walking Dead) was attempting to intimidate one the victims the day she was testifying.

[Zella]

This has also unleashed a lot of stuff (or reminded people) about how gross the That 70s Show set was in general. 

For all of his costars' bragging about how he made sure the set was drug-free, he seems to have ensured it was a toxic hellhole in other ways. Things like an interview where a twenty-something Ashton Kutcher talks about how, on a bet with Masterson, he tried to French-kiss a 14/15-year-old Mila Kunis against her will their first week of working together while shooting a scene. One of Masterson's victims who was also on the show said that Topher Grace was the only guy on set who was decent and he was essentially bullied relentlessly by both Kutcher and Masterson but especially Masterson. 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Zella

[Sarahsmile416]

[Zella]

10 minutes ago, Sarahsmile416 said:

Yes I found her phrasing about Kunis interesting. 

And here's the second part that covers the way Topher Grace was treated. I couldn't find the second one by itself without it being too small to read. 

 

[Blergh]

13 minutes ago, Sarahsmile416 said:

All the above claims about Mr. Kutcher and Miss Kunis have got me worried about their own kids' safety! I wish I was joking but it's scary to think that these so-called adults didn't repudiate and disavow Mr. Masterson and rally around the victims he was convicted of raping instead of openly supporting him. I pray somehow those kids have got at least one person in their extended families who will prioritize protecting them!

[DearEvette]

Chrissie is currently a proud resident of Idgafkistan! She is spilling all the tea.

Regards the comment about Mila's interviews: Someone on twitter compiled a bunch if old interviews Mila did (late night, daytime, MTV) some them as a team with Ashton or Danny and it was pretty gross. I had no idea she was 14 and Ashton was 20 when they were on the show. Not only was she very sexually coded on show, her hotness and sexiness was a constant refrain during the interviews. 
 

In one interview on the Rosie O'Donnell show, Ashton mentions they had their first kiss on the show and Danny and he bet on him giving her tongue during the kiss. Again-- she was a minor!

In another she is answering a question and Danny interrupts with a 'but you're so hot!' Yuck.  
 

And in another she is sitting on Ashton's lap and he 'jokingly' begins to hump on her.  
 

Really gross and disturbing to see them all together like that.

 

[Zella]

6 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

In one interview on the Rosie O'Donnell show, Ashton mentions they had their first kiss on the show and Danny and he bet on him giving her tongue during the kiss. Again-- she was a minor!

O'Donnell is also pretty clearly weirded out and not amused by the anecdote.

[FancyRhubarb]

46 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

Chrissie is currently a proud resident of Idgafkistan! She is spilling all the tea.

 

I say this carefully and with the caveat that I believe Chrissie was raped and I believe that she's been subjected to "fair gaming" from Scientologists. Chrissie is a conspiracy theorist. She was deep into the Wuhan lab and vax scam and had some wild theories about what happened to Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. I just don't believe what she's implying about Kutcher conspiring with Masterson about that murdered woman he was casually dating.

Edited September 10, 2023 by FancyRhubarb
punctuation

[Danielg342]

On 9/8/2023 at 7:11 PM, Lugal said:

OK, I can kinda understand them, they're sticking up for a long-time friend and they never saw that side of him (or chose not to see it).

That's how I see it too. I feel like it's no different than when Brock Turner's father defended him or when Joe Paterno "didn't do enough" about Jerry Sandusky- Ashton Kutcher, Mila Kunis, Kurtwood Smith and Debra Jo Rupp viewed Danny Masterson as a friend, so they did what friends do: they defend them. When it comes to those we like, we tend to have our "filters" on which either partially or fully blinds us to what they've done, because our instinct is to stick up for our friends and defend them.

Yes, to a neutral observer it goes counter to what we think they would (or even should) act, but it's really the psychology of friendship at play. I don't believe Kutcher et all are trying to be malicious- it's really all about how they have their "friend blinder" on.

The other thing is that predators don't just play their victims- they play everyone. I can't speak to the extent of Masterson's manipulation of his castmates because I wasn't there (though the fact that Masterson seemingly "took control" of the cast as a group and basically commanded them not to do drugs makes me think he was at least trying to manipulate them), but it wouldn't surprise me if Masterson hoodwinked his pals and did what he could to make sure they didn't see the bad side of him. Different members of the cast fell for Masterson's antics at different levels, and Kutcher et all seem to have bought it at a high level. In doing so, Masterson essentially tricked them into becoming his friend and thus developing their sense of loyalty and unbridled support for Masterson genuinely and willingly- because Masterson so successfully tricked them into believing he was someone that he wasn't.

On 9/8/2023 at 8:19 PM, Dani said:

My takeaway from the letters are that Kunis and Kutcher don’t believe he is guilty. They, and most of the others who wrote statements, emphasized that Danny Masterson was anti-drugs. They both credit him with their not using drugs.

I was struck by that too. Masterson raped those women, but he wasn't into drugs and vehemently opposed his friends from doing them too, even though the two concepts are unrelated. I think it speaks more to Masterson's manipulative nature (see my previous paragraph), because Kutcher and Kunis almost sound like they revered Masterson and said no to drugs because their "god" told them not to.

On 9/8/2023 at 8:19 PM, Dani said:

The judge allowing the prosecution to focus more on the belief that the victims were drugged which was a very important part of the trial. It wasn’t allowed in the first trial and is expected to be something that will come up in his appeal. 

That will be an interesting legal question going forward. I can understand why Judge Charlaine Olmedo decided to allow the prosecution to argue drug use despite no toxicology evidence because, given the time difference between the events and the trial, it would be impossible to secure that evidence.

However, is it on solid legal ground? As far as I understand, the only evidence that Masterson drugged the victims were the testimony of the victims themselves. This isn't the Bill Cosby case where it's a matter of public record that Cosby admitted he drugged his victims, because Masterson has denied doing it.

So the question will be whether or not you can uphold a conviction of rape by force when there is no proof of the instrument of that force (the drugs). Which could have precedent for other cases going forward.

There may be other grounds for appeal, but the drug one will be one I'm most interested in.

[Zella]

9 hours ago, FancyRhubarb said:

I say this carefully and with the caveat that I believe Chrissie was raped and I believe that she's been subjected to "fair gaming" from Scientologists. Chrissie is a conspiracy theorist. She was deep into the Wuhan lab and vax scam and had some wild theories about what happened to Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. I just don't believe what she's implying about Kutcher conspiring with Masterson about that murdered woman he was casually dating.

Just for clarification, what do you think she's implying? I've seen two schools of thought on it. One is she's insinuating Kutcher murdered her himself, which I don't believe actually happened. I think the guy convicted is the one who killed her.

The other theory is that he realized she was dead that night, panicked, and called Masterson, who then helped him concoct his weird story about seeing spilled wine that Kutcher didn't tell police until the next day. That I could actually see being highly plausible. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Just for clarification, what do you think she's implying? I've seen two schools of thought on it. One is she's insinuating Kutcher murdered her himself, which I don't believe actually happened. I think the guy convicted is the one who killed her.

The other theory is that he realized she was dead that night, panicked, and called Masterson, who then helped him concoct his weird story about seeing spilled wine that Kutcher didn't tell police until the next day. That I could actually see being highly plausible. 

Same for me. His version is weird so the theory that he knew she was dead and left without reporting it makes a lot of sense.

Either way, she was dating Masterson at the time so she definitely knows more than the public story. Even someone who did nothing wrong is going to be cautious when talking to the police about a murder. 

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, Dani said:

His version is weird so the theory that he knew she was dead and left without reporting it makes a lot of sense.

Agreed. I think that makes way more sense than what he claims happened, especially in light of the dynamics on set that have since been observed and explained by more people than just Chrissie. 

[FancyRhubarb]

7 hours ago, Zella said:

Just for clarification, what do you think she's implying? I've seen two schools of thought on it. One is she's insinuating Kutcher murdered her himself, which I don't believe actually happened. I think the guy convicted is the one who killed her.

I took it as her implying he had something to do with her murder. 

[Zella]

5 minutes ago, FancyRhubarb said:

I took it as her implying he had something to do with her murder. 

Yeah I could be wrong, but I don't think that's what she's actually implying. I think she's instead implying he knew for hours that she was dead but delayed reporting it to police and lied about what he saw and that Masterson likely helped him craft the story he told to authorities. 

Edited September 10, 2023 by Zella

[FancyRhubarb]

5 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yeah I could be wrong, but I don't think that's what she's actually implying. I think she's instead implying he knew for hours that she was dead but delayed reporting it to police and lied about what he saw and that Masterson likely helped him craft the story he told to authorities. 

It could be that. Maybe I spent to long reading a reddit thread where people are convinced that her comment is a confirmation that Kutcher killed her and then called Masterson so he could talk him through covering his tracks and pinning it on some random man who is now serving the life sentence that he should be serving. Which...no. 

[Zella]

14 minutes ago, FancyRhubarb said:

It could be that. Maybe I spent to long reading a reddit thread where people are convinced that her comment is a confirmation that Kutcher killed her and then called Masterson so he could talk him through covering his tracks and pinning it on some random man who is now serving the life sentence that he should be serving. Which...no. 

Yeah that's pretty wild and over-the-top. I don't doubt that Masterson is a good manipulator, but that seems like assigning both him and Kutcher a skillset that I really doubt either possesses. The guy who killed her is a serial killer who killed before and after her. He was her neighbor, and that is true of his other victims too. The excessive number of stab wounds is also a hallmark of this guy. 

 

[stonehaven]

I will say that since Masterson's conviction, a scene from an episode of That 70's Show has been playing in my mind.

I rarely watched the show as I never found it that funny and Hyde's character always gave me the creeps. Still this one exchange has taken a new light...and at that time, it was the only laugh I ever got out of that show...

All the kids interview for a job at a diner run by Danny Bonaduce. They show the typical answers of each kid to each mind-numbing question, including the one I detest the most..

Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Hyde: In prison....

 

...took a bit longer but good enough for me....

[Danielg342]

2 minutes ago, stonehaven said:

a scene from an episode of That 70's Show has been playing in my mind.

I rarely watched the show as I never found it that funny and Hyde's character always gave me the creeps. Still this one exchange has taken a new light...and at that time, it was the only laugh I ever got out of that show...

All the kids interview for a job at a diner run by Danny Bonaduce. They show the typical answers of each kid to each mind-numbing question, including the one I detest the most..

Interviewer: Where do you see yourself in five years?

Hyde: In prison....

It's either Harsher In Hindsight or Hilarious In Hindsight. Your Mileage May Vary.

35 minutes ago, Zella said:

Yeah that's pretty wild and over-the-top. I don't doubt that Masterson is a good manipulator, but that seems like assigning both him and Kutcher a skillset that I really doubt either possesses. The guy who killed her is a serial killer who killed before and after her. He was her neighbor, and that is true of his other victims too. The excessive number of stab wounds is also a hallmark of this guy. 

 

The man who was convicted of the murder, Michael Gargiulo, went to trial, had a lot of evidence presented against him to prove that conviction and a jury agreed there was enough evidence to support that conviction.

Occam's Razor would say that Gargiulo committed the crime. Sure, maybe Ashton Kutcher and Danny Masterson really did it...but, to arrive at that conclusion, you'd need a scenario that not even the most fanciful of Hollywood scripts would conjure up. It's far more likely that Gargiulo did the deed than anyone else.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Zella said:

Yeah I could be wrong, but I don't think that's what she's actually implying. I think she's instead implying he knew for hours that she was dead but delayed reporting it to police and lied about what he saw and that Masterson likely helped him craft the story he told to authorities. 

I saw earlier on social media that she posted a video from a friend of hers who has a YouTube channel exposing Scientology that basically confirms this is what she is saying. The video says Kutcher found the body and the sat in his car outside for an hour calling various people on his team and Masterson for advice. That he was told to go the party rather than reporting it. 

[Danielg342]

10 hours ago, Dani said:

The video says Kutcher found the body and the sat in his car outside for an hour calling various people on his team and Masterson for advice. That he was told to go the party rather than reporting it. 

Then that would mean that Ashton Kutcher lied in court and would give Michael Gargiulo grounds for appeal. It would be no small thing- which makes it hard to believe that Chrissie Bixler's story is the truth. How neither the defence nor the prosecution caught that inconsistency is beyond belief. 

[MaggieG]

What happened in Toronto??

When Ashton said in the apology video "those letters were meant for the judge", it's clear he meant that only the judge would see them and they never wanted them to become public. 

I'm glad he's going to prison

[DkNNy79]

I mean anyone with half a brain cell should've known this was a bad idea.    Even if they didn't think the letters would be made public.

Very disappointed in them.

 

 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Danielg342 said:

It would be no small thing- which makes it hard to believe that Chrissie Bixler's story is the truth. How neither the defence nor the prosecution caught that inconsistency is beyond belief. 

I have no problem believing it wasn’t a factor. It was 18 years between the murder and the trial and there was a lot of evidence against the man convicted. Including a victim who survived and was able to testify. 

[Zella]

20 minutes ago, DkNNy79 said:

I mean anyone with half a brain cell should've known this was a bad idea.    Even if they didn't think the letters would be made public.

Yeah there have been a lot of character witness type letters that end up released over the years. On the Duggar forum, we're still getting mileage out of the ridiculous ones written for Josh Duggar a couple of years ago. "He's a good dad because he sweeps cracker crumbs off the counter!" "He greets everyone by name at the end of the day!" Obviously he should be spared in his sentencing for being such an outstanding cracker-sweeping, end-of-the-day-greeting human. Honestly, some of the inane bullshit in the letters for Masterson reminded me of the Duggar ones. It's clearly its own genre of writing and the bar is in hell. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Zella

[Jaded]

On 9/8/2023 at 5:10 PM, Dani said:

 

It pisses me off so much I’m instead going to focus on the fact that the judge read those, listened to the victim impact statements and gave Masterson the maximum sentence. And the names that aren’t on the list like Topher Grace, Laura Prepon, Wilmer Valderama and Busy Phillips. 

I knew at one time Laura was into Scientology. Looking her up again shows she made the fact know that she had quietly left the cult in 2016 after what Danny did to those women was made public. I did read over the weekend that she was dating Danny's brother Chris around the time at least one of the sexual assaults occurred. There are some speculating that she my have used Scientology back then to help silence the survivors too. I'm going to give her the benefit of the doubt unless something comes out to prove me wrong since she was one that didn't write a letter to the judge.

[Wiendish Fitch]

Re: Danny Masterson

It very much reminds me of all the people who defended Larry Nassar: how "nice" he was, how much he did for the community, what a family man he was, and all that crap.

Bad people can be "nice". 

Bad people can hide behind charitable works.

Bad people can have spouses, children, homes in the suburbs in the "real America", etc.

There are bad people who never so much as look at drugs and alcohol. 

Bad people can don incredibly good disguises*. The sad, frustrating thing is that, like Nassar's defenders, Masterson's defenders will most likely die on this hill.

*Or mediocre, banal ones that somehow pass moral muster, like Josh Duggar. 

[Zella]

31 minutes ago, Jaded said:

I knew at one time Laura was into Scientology. Looking her up again shows she made the fact know that she had quietly left the cult in 2016 after what Danny did to those women was made public. I did read over the weekend that she was dating Danny's brother Chris around the time at least one of the sexual assaults occurred.

I went on a deep dive reading Tony Ortega's reporting on the first trial over the weekend, which was full of lots of disturbing information but definitely very informative since he was in the courtroom for the entire trial.

One of the things that really stood out to me is how deeply enmeshed this friend circle of Scientologists were. So, yes, Laura Prepon indeed was dating his brother Christopher. She actually dated him for years and during the timeline of all of these rapes that Danny Masterson was tried for. His family and siblings come up a lot incidentally in the testimony of various events because he spent a lot of time with them. 

And just in general, it's the same people over and over again in the testimony hanging out at Masterson's house. I am pretty sure all 3 of the victims reference a Luke Watson in various anecdotes about their experiences with Masterson. He was dating Lisa Marie Presley at the time and his mother is very high up in the Scientology world. One of the victims even told Lisa Marie about the rapes, and Masterson threatened her at one point with "You're not going to tell Lisa about this." And at one point, when Masterson was dragging this victim upstairs before raping her, Watson was trying to intervene and stop it because they already knew about a previous encounter between the victim and Masterson that was of dubious consent. But the vibe was very much "Danny should not be alone with her!"/"Danny's not supposed to be alone with her!" (even said in front of Masterson, which he just shrugged off) and seems like it was an open secret in their friend group. But guess who's still apparently hanging out with Masterson afterward? Luke Watson!

I also read some commentary that said for all the talk about how Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis may consider Danny Masterson a close friend and that is coloring their view of him, they also knew the victims too precisely because of the way this circle of friends operated. 

I have a feeling that that entire circle of friends have some pretty dark stories that their own friendship with Masterson and/or their own affiliation from Scientology has muzzled. 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Zella

[Spartan Girl]

53 minutes ago, Wiendish Fitch said:

Re: Danny Masterson

It very much reminds me of all the people who defended Larry Nassar: how "nice" he was, how much he did for the community, what a family man he was, and all that crap.

Bad people can be "nice". 

Bad people can hide behind charitable works.

Bad people can have spouses, children, homes in the suburbs in the "real America", etc.

There are bad people who never so much as look at drugs and alcohol. 

Bad people can don incredibly good disguises*. The sad, frustrating thing is that, like Nassar's defenders, Masterson's defenders will most likely die on this hill.

*Or mediocre, banal ones that somehow pass moral muster, like Josh Duggar. 

Christina Ricci agrees with you

[andromeda331]

51 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Christina Ricci agrees with you

Great response from Christina.