Christian Slater verbally abuses reporter over questions about abusive past

Christian Slater has apologised after he verbally abused a reporter who asked questions about his own abusive past.

Slater was speaking to the editor of The Daily Beast Nico Hines, while doing press around his new West End performance in David Mamet’s ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’.

Hines says that the ‘Mr Robot’ star called him ‘a salacious c***’ in the exchange.

The incident came when Hines referred to a remark Slater made about having ‘no regrets’ about his past, at which point he was asked about once being jailed for beating up his girlfriend.

Slater spent three months in jail and spent three further months in rehab in 1997 for assaulting his then girlfriend Michelle Jonas and a police officer while under the influence of drink and drugs.

He was also arrested in Manhattan in 2005 for allegedly sexually harassing a woman in the street. He was charged with third degree sexual abuse, but the charges were later dropped on the condition that he kept out of trouble for six months.

“What a salacious c*** this guy is!” Slater reportedly said in reply, after which a publicist quickly ushered the actor from the room.

However, Slater later emailed Hines about the outburst, and expressed his sorrow.

“The question of regret is hard for me to reckon with. I do regret my words this morning,” he said.

Slater, who plays Ricky Roma in the production, played by Al Pacino in the classic 1992 movie, discusses the overt bullying in the play too during the interview, as if broaching a parallel between the action seen in the play, which centres on cut-throat real estate sales, and Hollywood in the post-Weinstein era.

“What’s interesting about the play is Mamet’s dealing with a kind of toxic masculinity,” he says.

“It’s men all thrown together and you see dreadful behavior – you see the dreadful behavior of men who have power over others.”

Asked whether he had any advice for those caught up in the Hollywood harassment claims, he said: “Ooft, Jesus. Gosh, I don’t know – this is such a particular time where we’ve really hit a moment when such extraordinary change has to take place so I’m happy that women’s voices are being taken seriously and this age of secrecy and abuse of power era has to come to an end.

“I want women and all people to feel comfortable in the workplace, and I try to have that environment in my work.”

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