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'But These Allegations Could Ruin a Man's Career!' Right. Here's a List of Men Accused of Assault Whose Careers Turned Out Just Fine

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | October 26, 2017 |

By Courtney Enlow | Celebrity | October 26, 2017 |


Rolling Stone recently released an interview with Kitti Jones, one of the many survivors of R. Kelly and his decades of abuse against women and girls. If you haven’t read it, you should. Her account shows so much of what women experience after and during abuse, the lies you tell yourself, the excuses you make, all the reasons you convince yourself it’s not that bad or worth it or not worth hurting your abuser by going to the police or anyone else.

Like Harvey Weinstein, stories of Kelly’s abuse and misconduct have existed for years. Like most abusive famous men, his career has faced no real consequences. Charlie Sheen has been beating women—and shooting one of them—for nearly 30 years, and his career only took a hit when he became a problem on set to his male bosses.

Every time we or anyone else writes about sexual assault allegations or rape culture or violence against women, without fail, someone will comment in disbelief, listing the reasons the allegation isn’t credible. And especially in the wake of the now widely known “shitty men in media list,” there’s been a lot of focus on how allegations like this could ruin a man’s career.

As a woman in media, I can personally attest that there are many serial abusers out there doing just fine.

But let’s take it to a much higher level and focus on the men in Hollywood who have been accused of violence, sexual assault, and other crimes against women and marginalized people. This list is by no means comprehensive and is meant mostly to combat the notion that allegations like this have any real impact on the career of the perpetrators, while women like Sean Young disappear almost entirely. What we choose to believe and what we excuse or explain can be incredibly telling. Again, this is just the tip of the iceberg, what we could pull off the top of our heads in the Pajiba writers Slack. For an even more comprehensive list, and even this is still only a fraction, check out Beth Winegarner’s recent Medium post.

Here is a list of men in Hollywood who’ve been accused and the allegations against them:

Casey Affleck (sexual assault)

Woody Allen (sexual molestation of his own child)

Alec Baldwin (verbal abuse of a child, lots and lots of assault)

Michael Bay (verbal abuse)

Sean Bean (spousal abuse)

Josh Brolin (spousal abuse)

Nicolas Cage (spousal abuse)

Louis C.K. (sexual misconduct)

Sean Connery (spousal abuse)

Neil DeGrass Tyson (rape)

Johnny Depp (spousal abuse)

Michael Fassbender (domestic violence)

Mel Gibson (domestic violence, verbal abuse)

Al Gore (sexual assault)

Terrence Howard (domestic violence, assault)

Jared Leto (sexual assault)

Rob Lowe (sexual harassment and assault, sex with an underage girl)

Bill Murray (spousal abuse)

Gary Oldman (spousal abuse)

Sean Penn (tied up and tortured then-wife Madonna for nine hours)

Roman Polanski (rape and sexual assault of four women, all of whom were underage at the time)

Brett Rattner (sexual misconduct)

David O. Russell (sexual assault of his teenage niece, verbal abuse)

Bryan Singer (sexual assault of underage boys)

John Travolta (sexual assault and battery)

Mark Wahlberg (multiple accounts assault including racially motivated attacks)

President Donald Trump (holy shit)