EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood’s response to the criminal sexual conduct allegations against Jared Leto will be revealing of where the industry stands on the MeToo movement. That’s the view of Mike Radford, the executive producer behind Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, the explosive BBC documentary about the Oscar-winning Dallas Buyers Club star.
The documentary, which premiered without any pre-publicity on Wednesday, detailed the experiences of 10 women, four of whom accused Leto of criminal sexual conduct. Leto has denied the allegations. “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false,” he said in a statement.
In an interview with Deadline, Radford said: “The Jared Leto case is a bellwether on where we are on the MeToo movement. There has been a lot of pushback in that area, and how the industry responds to the allegations about Jared Leto will tell us where the industry — both music and film — stands when serious allegations are made against one of their most powerful people.”
The BBC’s documentary is not the first time Leto has faced claims of misconduct. Allegations about Leto first took flight last year when Los Angeles DJ Allie Teilz posted on Instagram saying she had been assaulted by the actor when she was 17. This led to a report in U.S. media outlet Air Mail last year, in which nine women accused Leto of engaging in inappropriate behavior.
The report did not stop Leto from promoting Tron: Ares for Disney, but he was noticeably absent from the publicity campaign for Masters of the Universe, including not showing up at the premiere of the Amazon movie. His band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, is scheduled to tour next year.
Jessica Sartenaer, who produced and presents Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, said allegations about Leto have bubbled away on the internet for years. The BBC has counted 120 separate accusations made online relating to his behavior towards women.
Jared Leto attends the world premiere of Disney’s ‘Tron: Ares’ at the TCL Chinese Theater
“People haven’t been paying attention,” Sartenaer told Deadline. She hopes this will change after the interest in Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, which is being distributed internationally by BBC Studios.
“I feel like it will be very difficult for him to ride this one out. People are 1785435238 really paying attention, and I just don’t see how he could be attached to another Hollywood project. However, I think his music career is maybe separate from that. He’s still got some diehard Thirty Seconds to Mars fans.”
Sartenaer began work on the BBC documentary last year after development producer Harry Pick spotted Teilz’s post on Instagram. Radford, who works in the BBC’s current affairs unit, took the project under his wing, having overseen similar documentaries, including Tim Westwood, Abuse of Power and Al Fayed: Predator at Harrods. The Leto film was directed by Alice McShane, whose credits include Russell Brand: In Plain Sight. Radford said the BBC’s public funding makes it uniquely well-positioned to shoulder lengthy journalistic investigations.
“We were really fortunate to have had that amount of time,” Sartenaer said. “These investigations are about building trust with people, with contributors, with sources. They are entrusting you with their most personal stories, something they have carried with them for years.”
Radford said the stories of Clara and Isabel (both pseudonyms) were important to getting the documentary over the line. Clara described how in 2006 she had sex with Leto at his home in California when she was 17, which would be classified as statutory rape in the state. Isabel, who appears on camera in the BBC film, alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Leto in Las Vegas in 2002.
They gave Leto and his representatives more than two weeks to respond to the allegations, but they did not reply to the BBC’s requests for comment. Leto only issued his denial hours after the documentary was released — and even then, the statement was not shared with Radford, Sartenaer, and the team.
Sartenaer said: “The courage of the women who have come forward for this investigation is just immeasurable, coming up against a very powerful man like Leto. I do think what they have done will empower many other women to speak their truth.”
