Just days ago, Richard Dreyfuss was voicing his support for his son Harry, who had come forward with a story of abuse from Kevin Spacey.
Now the Jaws star is fighting his own accusation.
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Writer Jessica Teich says when she saw his tweet, that’s when she decided to finally say something:
“When I read about his support for his son, which I would never question, I remember thinking, ├óΓé¼╦£But wait a minute, this guy harassed me for months.‘ He was in a position of so much power over me, and I didn’t feel I could tell anyone about it. It just seemed so hypocritical.”
Teich tells Vulture she was writing for the recent Oscar winner on a TV special called Funny, You Don’t Look 200: A Constitutional Vaudeville, when he called her into his trailer for a script meeting:
“I remember walking up the steps into the trailer and turning towards my left, and he was at the back of the trailer, and just ├óΓé¼ΓÇ¥ his penis was out, and he sort of tried to draw me close to it. He was hard. I remember my face being brought close to his penis. I can’t remember how my face got close to his penis, but I do remember that the idea was that I was going to give him a blow job. I didn’t, and I left.”
Teich says she can’t remember how she got out:
“It was like an out-of-body experience. I just tried to swiftly get out of the room. I pretended it hadn’t really happened. I kept moving because it was part of my job, and I knew he was, at the time, a very important guy, and certainly important to me. I trusted him. That’s what’s always so weird. I liked him. That’s part of why it’s so painful, because of the level of innocence one brings to these things. I felt responsible, that I must have indicated in some way that I was available for this.”
Dreyfuss never tried that again, but Teich says he continued to harass her:
“He created a very hostile work environment, where I felt sexualized, objectified, and unsafe… He has that way of sidling up to you and saying things like, ├óΓé¼╦£I want to fuck you.’ That was said all the time. He would constantly steer conversations to this yucky, insinuating thing, and I would sort of try to pull us back to a place where we could actually get some work done.”
Ick.
During a work research trip during which they met President Ronald Reagan, Teich says Dreyfuss “told me he’d spent the night with his ear next to the wall, listening to my movements in my hotel room.”
Ew ew ew ew ewwwwww!
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Teich was convinced Dreyfuss never even believed he was doing anything wrong. She said:
“Richard would be very surprised if 30-odd years later he heard that I felt completely coerced and disenfranchised. I think he’d be like, ├óΓé¼╦£Oh no, I thought you really liked me.’ I don’t think he had any idea.”
Interestingly enough, Teich got to find out she was right. Vulture reached out to Dreyfuss, who sent them a lengthy statement copping to the harassment, which he indeed thought was innocent flirting — but vehemently denying the penis incident:
“I value and respect women, and I value and respect honesty. So I want to try to tell you the complicated truth. At the height of my fame in the late 1970s I became an asshole├óΓé¼ΓÇ£the kind of performative masculine man my father had modeled for me to be. I lived by the motto, “If you don’t flirt, you die.” And flirt I did. I flirted with all women, be they actresses, producers, or 80-year-old grandmothers. I even flirted with those who were out of bounds, like the wives of some of my best friends, which especially revolts me. I disrespected myself, and I disrespected them, and ignored my own ethics, which I regret more deeply than I can express. During those years I was swept up in a world of celebrity and drugs ├óΓé¼ΓÇ£ which are not excuses, just truths. Since then I have had to redefine what it means to be a man, and an ethical man. I think every man on Earth has or will have to grapple with this question. But I am not an assaulter.
I emphatically deny ever “exposing” myself to Jessica Teich, whom I have considered a friend for 30 years. I did flirt with her, and I remember trying to kiss Jessica as part of what I thought was a consensual seduction ritual that went on and on for many years. I am horrified and bewildered to discover that it wasn’t consensual. I didn’t get it. It makes me reassess every relationship I have ever thought was playful and mutual.
There is a sea-change happening right now, which we can look upon as a problem or an opportunity. We all of us are awakening to the reality that how men have behaved toward women for eons is not OK. The rules are changing invisibly underneath our feet. I am playing catch up. Maybe we all are.
I hope people can join me in honestly looking at our behavior and trying to make it right. We have to relearn every rule we thought we knew about how men and women interact, because after all getting together is the most fundamental human compulsion. And if we don’t succeed in that, what do we have? I hope this is the beginning of a larger conversation we can have as a culture.”
Vulture showed Teich the statement before publishing. She responded:
“Wow, I don’t quite know what to make of that. I respect that he’s trying to grapple with it, and I regret that he’s not being totally honest. Sadly, what I regret even more is I’ll never forget the sight of his penis because I was so surprised to see it there. The fact that he can’t quite acknowledge all of it is understandable. But he certainly acknowledges that something happened, and he certainly acknowledges that it might have been inappropriate now that he looks back on it.”
She adds:
“├óΓé¼╦£Flirt’ is absolutely not the right word. It suggests something mutual, and that was not the case.”
Wow. What do YOU think about this allegation and Dreyfuss’ response?
Is he trying to save some face? Or does he REALLY not even remember??
[Image via FayesVision/WENN.]
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