A third woman has come forward to accuse American actor and director Dustin Hoffman of sexual harassment.
Kathryn Rossetter, who played Hoffman’s mistress in the 1984 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, recently penned a guest column for The Hollywood Reporter about her working experience with the 80-year-old actor, describing it as a “horrific, demoralizing and abusive experience at the hands (literally) of one of my acting idols.”
The 66-year-old actor is the third woman in the past month to come forward and accuse Hoffman of sexual harassment.
Rossetter wrote that Hoffman repeatedly groped her backstage during performances of Death of a Salesman, pulled up her clothes offstage and exposed her body to crew members.
“One night he actually started to stick his fingers inside me. Night after night I went home and cried. I withdrew and got depressed and did not have any good interpersonal relationships with the cast,” she wrote.
Hoffman, who has been accused by two other women of sexual harassment, also groped her at parties after their performances, she said.
“Whenever he had a picture taken with me, he would put his arm around my rib cage and then grab my breast just before they snapped the picture and then remove it. He was very skilled at dropping his hand just as the picture snapped to avoid it being recorded,” she recalled.
“Only by luck do I have one such picture where the camera caught him in the act. A picture I had taken with hopes of sending it to my family. A millisecond in time. There I am -- big smile and my arm moving toward his with the intention to push it away. But caught as it is, it seems I’m complicit with the gesture. I was not. Not ever,” she added.
{{/usCountry}}“Only by luck do I have one such picture where the camera caught him in the act. A picture I had taken with hopes of sending it to my family. A millisecond in time. There I am -- big smile and my arm moving toward his with the intention to push it away. But caught as it is, it seems I’m complicit with the gesture. I was not. Not ever,” she added.
{{/usCountry}}When at last I found an opportunity, I pushed Dustin up against the wall screaming, “F**k you! How would you like it if someone did that to you before you walked out on stage every night, Mr Method Actor? Leave Me alone,” she said.
The actress further wrote that The Graduate star has eroded her confidence and dignity.
“He humiliated and demeaned me,” she wrote. “He robbed me of my job in the experience and he left dirty fingerprints on my soul.”
However, the Rain Man star has not commented so far.
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