Charlize Theron is explaining why she won’t name the director she alleged sexually harassed her.
While on the Call Her Daddy podcast on Wednesday, the Old Guard 2 actress was asked about coming forward with her story about once being asked to go to a director’s house late at night for an audition, which was her first audition ever. Theron first shared her experience during an April 2019 interview on The Howard Stern Show.
At the time, she alleged the director opened the door in his pajamas and kept trying to talk during what she thought was going to be an audition. When the director put his hand on her knee, she said, she left.
“The little voice inside me definitely said, ‘This isn’t right,’” she said. “But then the other voice in me says, ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe it is right.’”
After publicly sharing the story, Theron said the director heard and seemingly got nervous.
“This guy, he got a little nervous for a while there. I’ve never said his name because honestly, I don’t want the story to be about him. It’s not because I’m protecting him or anything, but he got nervous for a little bit,” Theron added.
When host Alex Cooper asked why the unnamed director was nervous, Theron explained, “Because he heard me tell the story, and he knew it was about him, and he wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it, which is classic, isn’t it?”
Theron said she believes the director “started panicking.”
“He was waiting for me,” she said before clarifying why she won’t reveal his name. “And I just realized, like, I won’t even fucking say your name because you know you’re the scumbag. You know it’s you and if anybody ever asked me about him, I would be completely honest. And he knows that. And I kind of like that he’s got to be on a hot seat. He doesn’t know when it’s going to come. I kind of like that a little more.”
In her recent Hulu documentary, Call Her Alex, Cooper alleged that she was sexually harassed by her soccer coach, Nancy Feldman, at Boston University. When the two discussed how women feel guilt and shame for something that isn’t their fault, Theron recalled feeling that at the time.
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“I remember being furious with myself because I couldn’t believe how I had let myself down. I was like, “Who the fuck are you? Why the fuck would you allow that? Why?”
She continued, “I still get those feelings, because it’s you know yourself so well and there’s something that really kind of like breaks my heart to the core when people in this very luxurious manner talk about ‘Well, you know what, next time you should fucking say something. Like, don’t wait 20 years.’ This kind of like callous way of not wanting to believe. That’s really what it boils down to. It’s instead of saying, ‘I don’t believe you,’ it’s like, ‘Well, don’t be a fucking pussy. Like, maybe you shouldn’t have been a pussy about it.’ And we all know what that feels like. It feels like no matter what they say, it can’t hurt more than what you’re telling yourself.”
Theron then said that anyone could say whatever they want, and no one could hurt her “more than I hurt myself about what happened that day.”
Theron also told Cooper she’s “grateful” and respects Cooper’s “choice” to share her story: “I think that we need to tell these stories so that we can understand that we’re not alone.”