Who Is Charlotte Kirk, the Actress at Center of Ron Meyer’s Ouster

On Tuesday, the disclosure of an affair and settlement payment with actress Charlotte Kirk led to the abrupt resignation of NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer. Kirk is the same actress whose affair with Kevin Tsujihara led to his own ouster as Warner Bros. CEO last year. But who exactly is the actress, whose relationship with two Hollywood powerhouses led to their professional demise? Charlotte Kirk was born in Kent, England and began her acting career by performing in Greek tragedies “Agamemnon” and “Arturo Ui,” while also starring in plays like “A Christmas Carol,” “Oliver Twist” and “Hairspray.” She attended Italia Conti School of Acting in London and started working with Jigsaw Performing Arts in the United Kingdom, as well as with Susan Batson and Lee Strasberg in New York City. According to Authority Magazine, she moved to the United States when she was 19 because she found herself feeling “quite isolated within the U.K. acting community.” An individual with knowledge told TheWrap that Charlotte Kirk had an affair with Meyer eight years ago — which is around the time she picked up her first on-screen credit, a 2013 horror thriller called “Fractured.” Uncork’d Entertainment distributed that film. That same year, when she was 21 years old, she met Warner Bros. CEO Kevin Tsujihara through billionaire James Packer, according to a March 2019 story published by The Hollywood Reporter. The article said that an “increasingly desperate struggle” ensued among Tsujihara, Packer and director Brett Ratner to “manage Kirk’s urgent demands to be cast in movies and TV series.” Another 2019 Hollywood Reporter article detailed a sexual relationship between Kirk and Tsujihara. Amid an ongoing investigation into that relationship, Tsujihara stepped down, although he denied any wrongdoing connected to Kirk. The Hollywood Reporter published texts between the two that indicated she sought his help in obtaining acting jobs. The company looked into whether Kirk unfairly got roles in films because of a relationship with Tsujihara. Kirk had told the Daily Mail that she did not leak the text messages and had asked THR not to run the story exposing the relationship. Additionally, THR had reported that Ratner, at one point, accused her of “extortion.” The outlet also reported that Kirk had an affair with Packer. After meeting Tsujihara in 2013, Kirk had appeared in two Warner Bros. films: “How to Be Single” (2016) and “Ocean’s 8” (2018). As part of Kirk’s “urgent demands,” THR said that Avi Lerner, the founder and CEO of Millennium Films, worked for two-plus years to help the British actress secure roles in movies produced by his company. According to THR’s report, Kirk scored auditions for several other projects at Warner Bros. and Millennium Films. In an interview with the Daily Mail, Charlotte Kirk’s mother, Angie Kirk, defended her daughter and said people were jumping to “horrible conclusions,” adding that her daughter had Asperger’s syndrome and that “the roles she has won, she has won on merit alone.” And according to THR, Lerner’s most recent effort was to include Charlotte Kirk in 2019’s “Hellboy,” which was unsuccessful. Neil Marshall, with whom Kirk now lives, was the director of the film, and although Kirk had been his “top choice” for the role, she ultimately wasn’t “considered a big enough name.” Kirk has made appearances in “Ulysses: A Dark Odyssey” (2018), “The Depths” (2017), “First Kill” (2017), “Marauders” (2016) and “Vice” (2015). She also served as a writer, executive producer and star of “The Reckoning,” which is being directed by Neil Marshall and is supposed to hit theaters on Thursday at the Fantasia Film Festival in Canada. She has released two music videos, titled “Eyes in Love” and “I Get This Feeling Again,” and performed the end title track for the film “No Panic with a Hint of Hysteria,” in which she starred opposite Stephen Baldwin. Charlotte Kirk will next star in the satirical conspiracy thriller “Nicole and O.J.” as Nicole Brown Simpson, while Boris Kodjoe will play O.J. Simpson. According to a Hollywood Reporter story from March 2019, Joshua Newton, the director of the Simpson thriller, used to date Kirk. Newton has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment. In an interview from July 8, Kirk said she hopes to develop a second script she co-wrote with Marshall, called “Duchess.” “Charlotte is a true creative force,” Marshall told THR, “And I’m proud to be collaborating with her.” Meyer’s affair with Kirk occurred eight years ago and he previously reached a settlement with her for an undisclosed amount. But an insider told TheWrap that Kirk’s ex-boyfriend was trying to extort Meyer and force him to disclose the settlement to NBCUniversal. Kirk appears (so far, anyway) not to be involved in the alleged extortion attempt. Meyer and NBCU declined to comment, while representatives for Kirk declined to comment. Meyer’s departure abruptly ends a more than two-decade tenure with the company, most of which came as president and COO of Universal Studios, which he ran from 1995 until 2013. He had been Vice Chairman of NBCU for the last seven years. Meyer is known as one of the founders of powerhouse talent agency CAA.