Eight people are accusing Morgan Freeman of sexual harassment, unwanted touching and other inappropriate behavior, according to a new CNN investigation.
Published Thursday, the report details the 80-year-old actor’s alleged pattern of making unwanted advances on women while he was on movie sets, at press junkets or working with his production company Revelations Entertainment.
For the story, CNN spoke to 16 people who were either subjected to Freeman’s behavior or witnessed his alleged misconduct.
One woman who worked on the set of Freeman’s movie Going in Style (released in 2017) says the actor subjected her to sexually charged comments and unwanted touches on a near-daily basis, like “trying to lift up my skirt and asking if I was wearing underwear.”
In that incident, after Freeman kept trying to lift her skirt, Freeman’s co-star Alan Arkin “made a comment telling him to stop,” she said. “Morgan got freaked out and didn’t know what to say.”
Another woman, who worked with Freeman on 2013’s Now You See Me, says Freeman “did comment on our bodies … We knew that if he was coming by (to) not to wear any top that would show our breasts, not to wear anything that would show our bottoms, meaning not wearing clothes that (were) fitted.”
The accusers also include three entertainment reporters who claim Freeman harassed them during interviews or press events, one of whom was Chloe Melas, the co-author of CNN’s story. Melas says she interviewed Freeman for Going In Style while pregnant, and the actor ogled her body while saying things like “You are ripe” and “Boy, do I wish I was there,” in reference to her pregnancy.
Morgan, who won a supporting-actor Oscar in 2005, was divorced from his second wife in 2010 after 24 years of marriage.
USA TODAY has contacted Freeman’s representatives for comment.
SOURCE: USA Today – Maeve McDermott
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