Thandie Newton Reveals Sexual Abuse At Hands Of Director

Thandie Newton has spoken out about an incident of sexual abuse at the hands of a movie director.

It occurred early on in her career, though she does not name the man involved.

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Speaking to W magazine, she said: “A director, on a callback, had a camera shooting up my skirt and asked me to touch my t*ts and think about the guy making love to me in the scene.

“I thought, ‘Ok, this is a little weird,’ but there was a female casting director in the room and I’d done weird stuff before so I did it.”

However, the audition tape, she says, was not all that it seemed.

Bumping into a movie producer acquaintance years later at the Cannes Film Festival, Newton says that he remarked to her 'Oh, Thandie, I’ve seen you recently!’

“And he lurched away looking really shocked that he’d said that,” she added.

Her husband, the director and writer Oliver Parker, then approached the producer to ask what he meant, upon which the truth was revealed.

“It turns out that the director was showing that audition tape to his friends after poker games at his house. And they would all get off on it,” she said.

“I was so so naïve when I started out and I realize now that we have to prepare our kids— I’ve got two beautiful daughters, one is 16 one is 11.

“So many people in our business, they don’t want to be the ones to say something.

“But one person will read this and it will stop them getting sexually abused by a director. That’s the person I’m interested in.”

Newton is next appearing in HBO’s forthcoming TV adaptation of ‘Westworld’.

Image credit: Reuters