Dustin Hoffman faces several new claims of sexual assault.
The 80-year-old actor has denied three new claims of harassment and sexual assault, including one allegation that he exposed himself to a 16-year-old friend of his daughter.
Speaking to Variety, Cori Thomas – a former-schoolfriend of Hoffman’s daughter Karina – claimed that the legendary actor invited her and his daughter into a hotel he was staying at during a stay in New York.
After his daughter left the room, Thomas claims that Hoffman took a shower, before returning wearing just a towel which he then dropped. “He was standing there naked,” she said. “I think I almost collapsed, actually. It was the first time I had ever seen a naked man. I was mortified. I didn’t know what to do. And he milked it. He milked the fact that he was naked. He stood there. He took his time.”
After putting a robe, it’s claimed that he then asked the teenager to give him a foot massage.
“I didn’t know that I could say no, so I did it,” she explained. “And he kept telling me, ‘I’m naked. Do you want to see?’ What saved me was that the phone rang, and it was my mother downstairs to pick me up. So, I left.”
Hoffman’s representatives told Variety the claims were ‘defamatory falsehoods’.
But several others have also come forward with yet more claims.
Melissa Kessler, whose boyfriend worked on the sound crew of Ishtar, claims that Hoffman sexually assaulted her during a recording session, when she sat with him in the vocal booth during a take.
“He literally just stuck his fingers down my pants,” she said. “He put his fingers inside me. And the thing I feel most bad about is I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there. I just froze in the situation like ‘Oh my god, what is happening?’ It’s shocking when that happens to you.”
“He kind of laughed,” she added. “Then I just ran out of there, and I sat in the bathroom crying. I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ I felt like I’d been raped. There was no warning. I didn’t know he would do that.”
Another woman, who wished to remain anonymous, claims that she was also sexually harassed on the set of Ishtar – leading to claims that Hoffman sexually assaulted her in the back of a station wagon while being transported off set.
“There are people inches from us,” she said.
“And he just took his hand and stuck his fingers right up inside of me,” she added. “I didn’t know what to do. He’s smiling at me. I was frozen. I was outside of my body. There were people there. What are they going to think of me, that I’m a whore, if a say something? What would I say? He’s Dustin Hoffman.”
Of course, these are just the latest claims against the actor.
Recently, he faced allegations from Death of a Salesmen co-star, Kathryn Rossetter.
And in response to earlier allegations, Hoffman issued the following statement:
“I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”
Quite how this all pans out remains to be seen. But while allegations mount against the actor, it’s worth noting that no legal action has been taken as yet, and as far as we know, there are no active investigations into Hoffman’s actions at present.
