New allegations of sexual misconduct against American actor Dustin Hoffman have emerged after three women detailed instances of assault and inappropriate behaviour to Variety. One of them was a minor when the alleged incident took place.
According to the report, playwright Cori Thomas said Hoffman exposed himself to her in 1980, when she was in high school. Thomas was a friend of Hoffman’s daughter, Karina. After an outing with Karina and Hoffman, Thomas was waiting at a hotel room where the actor was staying for her parents to pick her up, she told the publication. Karina left early after which Thomas was alone with actor. Shortly after Karina’s departure, Hoffman went for a shower and came out in his towel. He then dropped the towel, she alleged.
“He was standing there naked,” Thomas told Variety. “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.” Thomas said he then instructed her to massage his feet.
A second woman, Mellisa Kester, alleged that Hoffman sexually assaulted her during the recording of songs for his musical Ishtar (1987). Kester’s boyfriend was working on the music for the film and had accompanied him to a Malibu Studio a few times.
On one of her visits, “...he [Hoffman] literally just stuck his fingers down my pants,” Kester told Variety. “...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.”
A third woman, who wished to remain anonymous, also complained that Hoffman had assaulted her during the making of Ishtar.
While Hoffman has not directly responded to these claims, his attorney Mark A Neubauer called the accusations against the actor “defamatory falsehoods,” in a letter to Variety.
Sexual harassment allegations against the 80-year-old Hoffman first emerged on November 1 in a guest column by writer Anna Graham Hunter in The Hollywood Reporter. Hunter said she was allegedly groped and humiliated by the actor when she was a 17-year-old intern on the sets of television movie Death of A Salesman (1985).
Soon after, producer Wendy Riss Gatsiounis alleged that that Hoffman had behaved inappropriately with her in 1991, when she met the actor and screenwriter Murray Schisgal to discuss a feature film adaptation of her play A Darker Purpose. Earlier this month, actor Kathryn Rosetter detailed multiple allegations of sexual harassment, including assault, against Hoffman while the two were working together on a Broadway adaptation of Arthur Miller’s Death of Salesman in the 1980s.
