Eight women have come forward to accuse Morgan Freeman of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior.
CNN published an investigative report on Thursday, May 24, after speaking with 16 people who described a pattern of misconduct by the 80-year-old actor. Eight of them claimed to be victims, while the other eight said they witnessed the alleged incidents.
One young production assistant claimed to the network that she endured several months of unwanted touching and inappropriate comments on the set of the 2017 bank heist comedy Going in Style starring Freeman. She alleged that the movie star once “kept trying to lift up my skirt and asking if I was wearing underwear” before his costar Alan Arkin told him to stop.
A senior member of the production staff for the 2013 thriller Now You See Me claimed to CNN that Freeman made numerous comments about her and her female assistant’s bodies.
“We knew that if he was coming by … not to wear any top that would show our breasts, not to wear anything that would show our bottoms, meaning not wearing clothes that [were] fitted,” she said.
Four of the people interviewed by CNN claimed that the Oscar winner made women feel uncomfortable on various movie sets over the past 10 years. They said they did not report his alleged behavior in fear of losing their jobs.
“He would be verbally inappropriate and it was just shocking,” claimed a former male employee at Revelations Entertainment, the movie production company that the Million Dollar Baby actor founded in 1996 with his business partner Lori McCreary. “It’s hard because on any set he is the most powerful person on it. It’s weird because you just don’t expect it from Morgan Freeman, someone who you respect.”
In addition, three entertainment reporters, including CNN’s own Chloe Melas, alleged that Freeman made inappropriate comments toward them at public press events. Melas claimed that he repeatedly looked her up and down and called her “ripe” when she interviewed him at a junket for Going in Style while six months pregnant. The alleged encounter led to the start of CNN’s months-long investigation.
Freeman responded to the allegations in a statement to Us Weekly, which said in part, “I apologize to anyone who felt uncomfortable or disrespected — that was never my intent.”
