The eight sex scandals that shocked Hollywood
From its inception, controversial episodes took place at the heart of the entertainment industry that involved the big stars and shocked the world.
"Hollywood, Hollywood, celluloid Babylon, glorious, fascinating, delusional city, frivolous, serious, bold and ambitious", say the opening lines of the controversial book Hollywood Babylon. There the filmmaker Kenneth Anger describes episodes of excesses -in every possible sense-, sexual abuse, love affairs, tragic deaths and all kinds of scandals that featured the big stars during the golden age of Mecca of cinema.
In recent weeks, with the revelations about an alleged sexual encounter that the actress Asia Argento would have had with a young actor when he was a minor, this description seems to continue to adjust to what is happening in Hollywood, while the controversies are rekindled, the High-impact titles, endless debates.
For the most memorable, it is not something new: over the decades, in the heart of the entertainment world there have been cases of great shock for the public starring the great stars who, due to the size of their figures, in a few hours they go around the world.
It is worth, then, to review some of the sex scandals that shocked the capital of the entertainment industry at different times in its history.
1. Chaplin and a controversial marriage
The life of Charles Chaplin, one of the most remembered figures in film history, is not without controversy. Among the most salient are that of his second marriage, and his subsequent divorce, of which new chilling details continue to be known to this day.
As revealed by the British newspaper The Times in 2015, there are official documents that give an account of the mistreatment that Lita Gray, the adolescent actress who married the actor in 1924, when she was 16 years old and he 35 years old.
According to documents published by that outlet, Chaplin approached Lita with all kinds of excuses until he convinced her to have sex.
"Chaplin took the impressionable young woman to bed with a promise to marry her. When Lita Gray became pregnant, he tried to convince her to have an abortion. The young woman's mother threatened to report Chaplin to the police and the actor would not he had no choice but to marry the young woman ", reconstructed, for its part, the newspaper ABC de España.
The actors said yes in the Mexican city of Empalme, in the state of Sonora, but since their wedding night, according to the documents, the young woman received "cruel and inhuman" treatment.
In the papers found "it is detailed that Chaplin seduced Lita Gray and that, once they were married (...) the actor required him to carry out degrading, disgusting and offensive sexual acts, some of which were illegal in California in the twenties. ", detailed the newspaper.
Chaplin and Gray were together for almost three years and, after having two children, they divorced.
2. The "madam" who fell from grace
In the mid-90s, the general public was able to meet, in a surprising way, a truly captivating character, who for years kept secret the names of the celebrities who hired his services: Heidi Fleiss, the woman whom the American media nicknamed as "the madam of Hollywood".
The woman, who was arrested 25 years ago and then investigated for different crimes related to the huge business she carried out offering the service of a VIP prostitution portfolio in Los Angeles, came to count years later that she raised "up to $ 97,000 in one day. "in commissions.
After 21 months in prison and a thunderous trial in the American media, Fleiss was released. What continued to generate intrigue were the names of famous clients that the pimp boasted of having since during the hearings the only celebrity who gave her testimony was actor Charlie Sheen.
In 2016, the British tabloid Daily Mail reported that among the alleged names listed in "the little black book" where the woman would have her clients listed would be entertainment industry heavyweights such as Johnny Depp, Billy Idol, Jack Nicholson, the filmmaker George Lucas and Hugh Hefner.
3. The least expected arrest
He was spending his moment of glory: he had been the protagonist of successful films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, he established himself as one of the most promising movie stars and lived in love with the actress Liz Hurley. Until one night in June 1995, Hugh Grant decided to go out for a drive around Los Angeles. And his life changed.
Chronicles of the time point out that the British artist had a sex worker nicknamed Divine Brown get into his BMW after crossing paths at a nightclub. Shortly after, and after paying him $ 60, the actor stopped the march on the iconic Sunset Boulevard for the woman to perform oral sex on him.
Until the police found them red-handed and detained them. The charges? They were accused of "lewd behavior" in a public place.
Grant's name was immediately made public. The same happened with the images of him and the prostitute that were photographed by the police when they arrived at the police station.
Weeks later and after his face appeared in all the magazines and television shows at the time, Grant made the release of him on The Tonight Show. He apologized and assured that he was sorry, while some contracts for future work projects were being canceled.
For that episode, Grant had to pay a fine and commit to doing community work.
4. Roman Polanski, more than 40 years in the eye of the storm
A little over 41 years after what happened, the scandal seems to have no end. In 1977, filmmaker Roman Polanski was arrested and charged in Los Angeles, California, for raping a 13-year-old girl in a mansion that belonged to actor Jack Nicholson.
"The Shining actor was on a trip and left the keys to the house with his friend for a professional job. Polanski was supposed to take Samantha Gailey (later his last name was changed to Geimer) a series of photos for a report. which was going to be published in Vogue magazine, "reconstructed the Spanish medium La Vanguardia.
"The mother of the minor, an admirer of the director of The Devil's Seed, proposed the idea to him and allowed her daughter to pose alone for the filmmaker's camera. In the second meeting, in addition to photos, there was champagne and drugs and the afternoon ended in a violation, according to the complaint filed by Samantha's parents, "he added.
At the time, the filmmaker agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a lesser charge. However, when he learned that he could remain in prison for much longer, he fled to Europe, where to this day he remains somehow at large.
In 2009, the director was detained for 9 months, after he was arrested at a European airport in response to an extradition request from the United States, which was later unsuccessful.
Faced with the different women's movements that protested his controversial figure, who to this day continues to receive complaints of sexual abuse, Polanski was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in charge of delivering the Oscars.
5. Bill Cosby
Another recent expelled from the Academy is actor Bill Cosby. In 2015, New York Magazine shocked its readers with a cover in which 35 women could be seen, including models, actresses, waitresses and journalists, who claimed to have been abused by the protagonist of The Cosby Show.
According to what the publication learned, after an intense investigation that lasted more than six months, the artist summoned women to his mansion to give them supposed acting classes. As they revealed, this methodology, which included the provision of different classes of sedatives to their victims, lasted for decades.
Since that public complaint, different lawsuits were activated against the comedian, who in April of this year was sentenced to ten years in prison for the sexual abuse of a young woman named Andrea Costand, in 2004.
The court found Cosby guilty of all three crimes of aggravated indecent assault of which he was charged and has since served a sentence with house arrest, while he is monitored by GPS.
6. Predator Weinstein
He was one of the strong men in the industry, a kind of emperor who lived surrounded by celebrities, between parties and glamor.
Until the end of last year, different complaints from women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault, abuse of power and even rape began to rain against him.
What began as a series of public demonstrations, appearing in, among others, the New York Times and The New Yorker magazine, grew into an unstoppable wave, which led to the movement known as #MeToo.
More than 80 women in the film industry accused the producer, who ended up being expelled from his own company, The Weinstein Company, and even from the Hollywood Academy.
Meanwhile, Weinstein is currently facing several judicial investigations. Although he is free on bail in one of the processes, in the cases against him he is investigated for serious crimes related to three women: two counts of predatory sexual assault, two counts of criminal sexual act in the first degree and one count of rape in first degree and a third degree rape.
"I was born poor, ugly, Jewish and I had to fight my whole life to get somewhere," said the producer in a recent interview with Spectator magazine. "No girl looked at me until I was successful in Hollywood. Yes, I offered them acting jobs in exchange for sex, but they also did it and still do all of them. But I never, never forced a single woman," he remarked.
7. The complaints that ended in a treatment against "sex addiction"
While the Weinstein scandal grew and with the days more and more cases of abuse by the producer were known, on October 30, 2017 another bomb exploded among the news of the show.
Actor Anthony Rapp claimed that in 1986, when he was still a minor, he was harassed by Kevin Spacey, during a party that took place at his home.
These statements provoked the reaction of the former protagonist of House of Cards who assured that he did not remember having had an inappropriate behavior on that occasion and that he apologized for what happened.
"As my closest acquaintances know, in my life I have had relationships with both men and women. I have loved and had romantic encounters with men throughout my life and today I have decided to live as gay," he said shortly after. the actor in a statement.
"I want to deal with this honestly and openly and that starts with examining my own behavior," Spacey added.
Rapp's words were joined by other similar accusations against the actor, who from those days announced his admission to a clinic in Arizona to undergo treatment for his addiction to sex.
Since then, the artist's career has been complicated: in addition to staying out of the Netflix series, his participation in different audiovisual projects has decreased.
Even the box office of his last works was affected by the serious accusations against him.
8. The King of Pop, to court
In 1993, Michael Jackson received the first of the accusations for child abuse that he would have to face throughout his life.
25 years ago, a Beverly Hills dentist named Evan Chandler reported that his son Jordan had been sexually abused by the King of Pop. The boy, then 13, used to visit Jackson's home, Neverland, along with others. minors.
Immediately, the Los Angeles police raided the singer's residence and speculation, rumors and controversy began in the media. From Thailand, where he was on tour, the musician spoke through his lawyer, Harold Weitzman.
"I am sure that the police department will carry out a fair and complete investigation and that the result will show that there was no wrongdoing on my part," the singer's statement said.
Chandler continued with his claim and brought the King of Pop to trial.
Ultimately, the parties reached an out-of-court settlement that cost Jackson nearly $ 20 million.
A year later, despite the settlement, the justice dismissed Jackson for not finding elements to prove the alleged crime.
Years later, the artist would again receive similar accusations and again face a trial with great media impact.
