Actress Olivia Munn revived the #MeToo movement during an interview with Buzzfeed’s AM2DM Thursday and said it is time for Hollywood’s accused abusers — like director Quentin Tarantino and actor Ben Affleck — to face consequences.
Munn expressed frustration over what she says is a lack of consequences against accused abusers in Hollywood.
“When most people mess up, we have to go to the back of the line and earn our way back up,” Munn said. “But then, there are these certain men who, when they mess up they kind of go: ‘Oops, sorry, my bad,’ and then just resume their place in line.”
While she noted that redemption is not out of the question, she said accused abusers need to go to the back of the line and earn respect back “just like everybody else.” The Predator star referenced director Quentin Tarantino and brothers Ben and Casey Affleck, specifically.
Tarantino, she said, “admitted to abusive behaviors on set and also admitted to knowing what Harvey Weinstein was doing.”
That much is true. Tarantino admitted that he “knew enough to do more” than he did during an interview with the New York Times in 2017.
Ben Affleck also came under fire for keeping quiet on Weinstein’s abusive behavior. Affleck also faced accusations himself. He ultimately apologized for groping Hilarie Burton during an old appearance on MTV’s Total Request Live.
Munn added that those figures are “not incredibly talented in their own right” but given opportunities that feed their abusive tendencies and give them more power.
“The thing is that, not that they’re not incredibly talented in their own right, but when you are given the opportunity to have any kind of power and you abuse that power, I believe you immediately lose all positioning and that you don’t get to have that power anymore,” the X-Men Apocalypse star added.
Munn is no stranger to the #MeToo movement and was, in some ways, ahead of the curve. She ultimately published an essay, accusing a director – later revealed to be co-founder and CEO of RatPac Entertainment Brett Ratner — of forcing her to watch him masturbate.
As Breitbart News reported:
In 2010, in a collection of essays, actress Olivia Munn told the lurid tale of a director who forced her to watch him masturbate. Ratner would eventually admit that he was that director but denied the allegation. He also apologized for spreading the false rumor the two of them had slept together.
Munn also told the Times that a year after the alleged masturbation incident, she bumped into Ratner at a party where he proceeded to brag about “ejaculating on magazine covers featuring her image[.]”
Munn was one of six women who made similar claims against Ratner. Actress Natasha Henstridge appeared on Megyn Kelly Today in November 2017 and said Ratner forced her to perform oral sex in the early 90s.
“When you are afraid of someone, when you physically don’t know what someone is capable of, when you are afraid of them, you don’t know what they are capable of doing, and therefore you submit,” she said. “And I submitted. I did submit.”
Warner Bros. cut ties with Ratner that same month.
Despite the female tone of the #MeToo movement, Munn says it is not a women’s issue. Rather, it is “an abuse of power issue.”
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