Credit Style: WENN
Michael Douglas,73, known for popular films like Fatal Attraction, Romancing The Stone, War of the Roses and Wall Street. Everyone adores his work. He has made himself a Hollywood icon.
What Happened?
Douglas, a household name is accused of sexual harassment by journalist and novelist Susan Braudy. Braudy began working for Douglas’ Stonebridge Productions in the late 1980s, where she told “Today,” “He thought he was the king of the world and that he could humiliate me without any repercussion.”
Most employees are told in a workplace that if they are treated unfairly, they should keep an account of it to include dates and times. Braudy did what most employees would do if they are being made to feel uncomfortable about something. Braudy has accounts and files of Douglas’ alleged use of inappropriate language and sexually charged behavior around her which she claims led to him masturbating in front of her.
Braudy provided documents to The Hollywood Reporter, supporting her allegations. She stated she was in a script meeting with Douglas when she noticed he slid down from his chair onto the floor.
“Michael unzipped his chinos and I registered something amiss,” Braudy wrote. “His voice lowered at least half an octave. I peered at him and saw he’d inserted both hands into his unzipped pants. I realized to my horror that he was rubbing his private parts. Within seconds his voice cracked and it appeared to me he’d had an orgasm.” Following the alleged incident, Braudy claimed, “I said nothing. I was surprised I wasn’t falling to pieces even though I was humiliated. I realized he thought he could do anything he wanted because he was so much more powerful than I was. Michael ran barefoot after me to the elevator, zipping his fly and buckling his belt. ‘Hey, thank you, you’re good. You helped me, thank you, thank you.’”
Braudy stated that her work relationship with Douglas went downhill quickly. “When he sweetly asked me to sign a confidentiality agreement, I knew Michael was preparing to fire me,” she wrote. “‘Don’t sign,’ my lawyer Leon Friedman said. ‘Keep saying your lawyer is out of town.’ So Michael waited six months for my lawyer ‘to return.’” She never signed the agreement.
Braudy said she told various people about the distress she claimed to have suffered by Douglas’ actions. Those people she confided in included journalist and “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff and author Lynn Povich, who confirmed her allegations. She did give a reason to why she hadn’t come forward publicly sooner, Braudy told “Today,” “One of my friends said, ‘You better not tell people about him.’ People were frightened for me.”
Who is Susan Braudy?
Susan Braudy began working for Douglas’ Stonebridge Productions in the late 1980s. She is an industry veteran, a senior executive, a published novelist and an established member of the women’s movement. She also has a 1993 letter from the California Women’s Law Center showing she inquired about remedies for sexual harassment in the workplace (read it here), though she says she was too intimidated to follow through with a complaint.
Braudy’s job, which she performed first in a small office suite but then mostly out of the living room in Douglas’ Manhattan home, was to “read scripts, hire and supervise screenwriters, and perhaps most important, to babysit Michael in his apartment,” she writes in her account.
Douglas denied the allegations through his attorney in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, calling Braudy’s masturbation claim “an unfortunate and complete fabrication … This individual [Braudy] is an industry veteran, a senior executive, a published novelist and an established member of the women’s movement — someone with a strong voice now, as well as when she worked at my company more than three decades ago. At no time then did she express or display even the slightest feeling of discomfort working in our environment, or with me personally. That is because at no time, and under no circumstance, did I behave inappropriately toward her.”
