Actress Eliza Dushku has spoken out about an alleged sexual assault.
The 37-year-old actress has claimed that famed Hollywood stunt coordinator Joel Kramer sexually assaulted her when she was just 12 years old, while filming the James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie, True Lies.
“When I was 12 years old, while filming True Lies, I was sexually molested by Joel Kramer, one of Hollywood’s leading stunt coordinators,” she wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “Ever since, I have struggled with how and when to disclose this, if ever.”
“At the time, I shared what happened to me with my parents, two adult friends and one of my older brothers. No one seemed ready to confront this taboo subject then, nor was I.”
At the time, Eliza Dushku was starring in the hit action flick, True Lies – starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis, the movie also starred Dushku in the role of their daughter.
“Why speak out now? I was 12, he was 36. It is incomprehensible. Why didn’t an adult on the set find his predatory advances strange — that over-the-top special attention he gave me. Fairly early on he nicknamed me ‘Jailbait’ and brazenly called me by this name in a sick flirty way in front of others (at the time, I remember asking one of my older brothers what it meant).”
Dushku details the alleged sexual assault, which she claims happened in his hotel room.
“I remember, so clearly 25 years later, how Joel Kramer made me feel special, how he methodically built my and my parents’ trust, for months grooming me; exactly how he lured me to his Miami hotel room with a promise to my parent that he would take me for a swim at the stunt crew’s hotel pool and for my first sushi meal thereafter.”
“I remember vividly how he methodically drew the shades and turned down the lights; how he cranked up the air-conditioning to what felt like freezing levels, where exactly he placed me on one of the two hotel room beds, what movie he put on the television (Coneheads); how he disappeared in the bathroom and emerged, naked, bearing nothing but a small hand towel held flimsy at his mid-section. I remember what I was wearing (my favorite white denim shorts, thankfully, secured enough for me to keep on).”
“I remember how he laid me down on the bed, wrapped me with his gigantic writhing body, and rubbed all over me. He spoke these words: ‘You’re not going to sleep on me now sweetie, stop pretending you’re sleeping,’ as he rubbed harder and faster against my catatonic body. When he was ‘finished,’ he suggested, ‘I think we should be careful…’ [about telling anyone] he meant. I was 12, he was 36.”
But that’s not all.
Eliza Dushku also claims that, following the incident of sexual assault, she told an adult about what had happened. The adult friend then went to the film set to confront Joel Kramer suffered broken ribs after a stunt with a harrier jet went wrong, in what she claims was ‘no small coincidence”.
“With broken ribs, I spent the evening in the hospital. To be clear, over the course of those months rehearsing and filming True Lies, it was Joel Kramer who was responsible for my safety on a film that at the time broke new ground for action films. On a daily basis he rigged wires and harnesses on my 12 year old body. My life was literally in his hands: he hung me in the open air, from a tower crane, atop an office tower, 25+ stories high.”
Of course, the serious nature of these allegations is terrifying.
Joel Kramer has since responded to these allegations.
“These are outlandish, manipulated lies,” he told Deadline. “I never sexually molested her. I’m sick to my stomach. It’s not true. I think she’s making this up in her imagination. This is all lies. Lies, lies, lies. This is just crazy. I treated her like a daughter. We all looked out for her. How does a guy like me fight against something like this? I don’t know what to do. I guess I’ll have to get a lawyer and file a lawsuit against her for defamation and slander.”
Kramer also claims that he never intentionally hurt her on set.
In fact, he also suggests that Dushku is exaggerating her injuries.
“I remember she might have gotten a little bruised,” he explained. “But I don’t think she broke any ribs.”
Eliza Dushku’s mother has since confirmed her account, with her borther also coming out in support of his sister’s story. Her legal guardian for the duration of the shoot has also claimed that Dushku’s detailed account is true, going so far as to call Joel Kramer a ‘pedophile’ in her own statement.
“Joel Kramer did what Eliza said he did,” she said in a lengthy statement. “He is a pedophile, and he must face the consequences.”
