Stars share "Me Too" stories
Alyssa Milano helped popularize the #MeToo hashtag when she urged her followers: "If you've been sexually harassed or assaulted write 'me too' as a reply to this tweet."
Milano said on "Good Morning America" that she's had her own experiences with sexual harassment but isn't sure if she "will ever publicly share" her own story. "I've done my own healing and been through counseling and have a great support system in my life," she said. "[Me Too] was about showing that this happens everywhere, that it's not just Hollywood, that it's not just actresses."
She added, "I have been harassed so many times I can't count. I've been assaulted, but this wasn't because I was an actress."
Rose McGowan
Rose McGowan tweeted "#MeToo" days after she wrote on Twitter, "HW raped me."
"HW" was apparently in reference to Harvey Weinstein, the embattled former Weinstein Co. co-chairman. The many allegations against Weinstein have emboldened women to speak up about sexual harassment and assault.
America Ferrera
America Ferrera tweeted that she was first assaulted when she was 9 years old.
She wrote, "I had to see this man on a daily basis for years to come. He would smile at me and wave, and I would hurry past him, my blood running cold, my guts carrying the burden of what only he & I knew - that he expected me to shut my mouth and smile back." She urged women to break the silence on sexual assault.
Evan Rachel Wood
In a string of tweets, Evan Rachel Wood wrote "I was so young and confused, it didnt occur to me that it was in fact rape if it was done by a partner or if you were asleep. #metoo."
"Being raped once made it easier to be raped again. I instinctually shut down. My body remembered, so it protected me. I disappeared. #metoo."
"Because I was shamed and considered a 'party girl' I felt I deserved it. I shouldnt have been there, I shouldn't have been 'bad' #metoo."
Gabrielle Union
Gabrielle Union tweeted #MeToo and wrote, "Sexual or physical violence, harassment, demeaning language is NOT the price one should pay for seeking or maintaining employment. Period." She also pointed out that she was raped at a Payless shoe store while wearing a tunic and leggings and asked people not to blame victims for what they were wearing.
Reese Witherspoon
At the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards, Reese Witherspoon said she had "true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment."
Witherspoon didn't name the director.
Jennifer Lawrence
At the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards, Jennifer Lawrence detailed what she called a "degrading and humiliating" experience of being asked early on in her career to lose 15 pounds in two weeks for a role. She was then forced to pose nude alongside thinner women for photos that she says a female producer told her would serve as inspiration for her diet, she said.
When she tried to speak up about the demands, Lawrence said she couldn't find a sympathetic ear from those in power.
"I was trapped and I can see that now," Lawrence added. "I didn't want to be a whistle-blower. I didn't want these embarrassing stories talked about in a magazine. I just wanted a career."
Lawrence said it wasn't until she was an A-list star that she had the power to say no.
Jenny Slate
Jenny Slate tweeted that she did not speak up about sexual harassment when she was younger because she felt uncomfortable doing so. She wrote, 'If u feel uncomfy about saying "Dont speak that way about women' while in a social setting, imagine what it feels like to be the subject ... Bc I thought ppl wld blame me or my sense of humor (which they DID, btw) it was scary°rading to speak out re: harassment at work."
Bjork
Bjork wrote on Facebook, "in the spirit of #metoo i would like to lend women around the world a hand with a more detailed description of my experience with a danish director." She said that this director whispered sexual offers into her ear, touched her inappropriately, tried to sneak into her room through her balcony and fed false stories about her to the press. Bjork has only worked on one film and it was with Danish director Lars Von Trier. Von Trier has denied the allegations.
Pauley Perrette
Pauley Perrette tweeted #MeToo and retweeted a previous post in which she said she was raped in high school by someone on the football team. She wrote, "My rape led me into a series of abusive relationships, terrible self worth and self blame, dismissing a few groping incidents, allowing myself to be bullied by a powerful man by way too long."
Mara Wilson
Author and former child actress Mara Wilson tweeted, "I still blamed myself when I was 21 and wearing a low-cut shirt and two different men tried to grab me on the street. One grabbed me, I broke away from him and tried to run, but dropped my iPod, a guy on a bike came up to 'help.'"
Molly Ringwald
Molly Ringwald said she was never harassed by Weinstein, but wrote a piece for the New Yorker in which she detailed the ways she was harassed by other men.
"When I was thirteen, a fifty-year-old crew member told me that he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against me with an erection," she wrote. "When I was fourteen, a married film director stuck his tongue in my mouth on set."
Lena Dunham
Lena Dunham tweeted that she couldn't sleep because she wanted to convey the complexities of sexual assault.
"Can't sleep remembering when I used to wait in the bodega near an abusive sex partner's house saying 'I'm just in the 'hood,'" she wrote. "Can't sleep remembering that I cried because my rapist passed me in the library and didn't say hi."
Blake Lively
Blake Lively said that while she was never harassed by Weinstein, she was harassed by a makeup artist once.
"He was saying things inappropriately, insisting on putting my lipstick on with his finger," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I was sleeping one night on location and I woke up and he was filming me. I was clothed, but it was a very voyeuristic, terrifying thing to do." Lively said she had to threaten legal action in order to get him dismissed.
McKayla Maroney
Olympic gold medal winner McKayla Maroney posted "#MeToo" with a statement saying, "I was molested by Dr. Larry Nassar, the team doctor for the US Women's National Gymnastics Team, and Olympic Team." Maroney said the abuse began when she was 13 years old and continued through the end of her gymnastics career.
Three other former gymnasts told "60 Minutes" in February that they were abused by Nassar. He pleaded guilty in July 2017 to child porn charges.
Tom Jones
Singer Tom Jones said he was sexually harassed early in his career.
"At the beginning, yes, there were a few things like that," he told BBC Radio 4. "What's tried on women is tried on men as well."
He continued: "Somebody tried to pull. It was a question, and I said no thank you ... There's always been that element there that people with power sometimes abuse it, but they don't all abuse it – there are good people."
Laura Dern
Laura Dern said she only realized recently that she was sexually assaulted when she was 14. She said on the "Ellen" show that her mother helped her understand it.
"It was my mom who said, 'No, no, no, Laura. That was sexual assault. That was harassment, that was assault. No, you were 14 then,'" she said.
Martha Stewart
Martha Stewart told People magazine about a modeling audition when she was a teenager.
"I was asked to wear a bikini under my clothes. I thought, 'Oh, maybe we're doing a beach commercial or something,'" she said. "So I go into the room and there's a table with all men sitting around it and it's an advertisement agency, I can't remember which one it was. They said, 'Now you can take your clothes off,' and I said, 'Oh, is this where are we doing the commercial? Are we wearing bikinis in the commercial.' They said, 'No, but as long as you're here we might as well see what you look like.' I thought that was harassment of the first order."
Stewart left the room instead of moving forward with the audition.
Tony Goldwyn
"Scandal" actor Tony Goldwyn told "Access Hollywood" that he was sexually harassed on the casting couch when he was younger. Goldwyn said he wanted to speak up after reading Lupita Nyong'o's opinion piece in the New York Times in which she alleged that Weinstein harassed her.
Goldwyn said, "It happened to me as a young guy, when I was literally Lupita's age. It happened to me by a man and it wasn't as extended or awful as what Lupita went through, but it was the same thing. It was the casting couch and I didn't understand quite what was going on, or what was happening."
He also said, "I thought it was my fault. I thought I was misunderstanding the situation, and only afterwards did I realize what had happened. It took me a couple years to get over it. It was similar in that I got out of the situation. It's something women have to deal with in every situation, in every industry with powerful men."
Terry Crews
"Brooklyn Nine-Nine" actor Terry Crews said a high-level Hollywood executive groped his genitals at an event last year. He tweeted that he "let it go" for fear of retaliation.
