Three more women have come forward to say Hollywood manager and “Atomic Blonde” producer David Guillod raped them, including an assistant at his former management company who said he took her from her bed at a 2014 company retreat and raped her.
The other two women said he drugged and raped them at his home in 2015 — and that they woke up covered in blood.
Guillod denies all of the accusations. The new accusers, who do not wish to be identified, join “Ted” actress Jessica Barth, whose public accusation that Guillod drugged and sexually assaulted her in 2012 sparked his recent resignation from Primary Wave Entertainment, his management company.
TheWrap spoke to the two women who made the 2015 accusation, but the former assistant from 2014 did not respond to numerous requests for comment. She received a $60,000 settlement and signed a nondisclosure agreement to leave the company soon after the retreat, according to multiple individuals familiar with the situation.
A person close to the former assistant confirmed to TheWrap that she spoke to the LAPD this week, and that person and three employees who were at the 2014 retreat in Santa Barbara County corroborated that Guillod had raped her.
“Consent was not possible. It was beyond that,” said one of the employees, who saw the woman moments after her time alone with Guillod. “She just started bawling and was like, ‘I think I had sex.’ It was so clear that this had not been consensual.”
One of the two 2015 accusers has also spoken with police. The LAPD declined to comment, citing confidentiality rules, except to say there is an open report about Guillod.
Guillod’s team said he had dated the actress who accused him of raping her and her friend, an assertion she strongly denies. “Mr. Guillod is saddened by these false and malicious claims,” a publicist for Guillod told TheWrap. “Especially the accusations made by an individual he dated and considered a friend. He thanks his friends, colleagues, clients and family for their continued support.”
Added his attorney, Philip Kent Cohen: “Mr. Guillod denies any allegations of nonconsensual sex. His defense team has interviewed multiple witnesses that contradict these accusations and we are confident that his name will be cleared.”
The new accusations sparked an investigation by Primary Wave into whether Guillod or anyone else tried to cover them up. The company includes many strong advocates of female empowerment among its clients, and produced last year’s “Young Women’s Honors,” hosted by “Jane the Virgin” star Gina Rodriguez. She left Primary Wave on Thursday.
While names like Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey dominate the Hollywood misconduct discussion, Guillod’s case reflects the blurred lines in the trenches of the entertainment business, where assuaging male egos can be part of women’s unofficial job descriptions, and business and personal can mix in calamitous ways.
Wine Country
The December 2014 retreat, in Santa Barbara wine country, was for Intellectual Artists Management, a company Guillod founded after exiting two previous jobs amid sexual harassment complaints, insiders told TheWrap.
On the first night of the retreat, Guillod invited his entire team — mostly male executives and mostly young, female assistants — to a rustic dinner in a vineyard dining room. Wine flowed freely and water was in short supply, guests told TheWrap.
Guillod announced that the company would soon merge with the talent management division of another firm, Primary Wave, and a raucous celebration broke out: Assistants danced on the thick wood table, and one executive swung from a chandelier.
When the group returned to their hotel, one assistant was so drunk that a female employee led her up to one of the company’s hotel rooms and tucked her into bed.
But later that night, Guillod led the intoxicated assistant from her bed and sexually assaulted her, according to two employees who saw her immediately after she was with Guillod. Both said she was confused and upset. One described her as “hysterical.” A third attendee and the person close to the assistant agreed that Guillod sexually assaulted her.
Word quickly spread through the company, and some were concerned that it would threaten the merger. The assistant went to a rape crisis center, the person close to her said.
After several attempts to take care of the assistant and keep her from speaking out — including a fancy dinner and an offer of a spa day — she was given a $60,000 settlement by Intellectual Artists Management and required to sign the NDA.
On Friday, Primary Wave Entertainment called the accusations “deeply disturbing and horrific.”
“When faced with the initial allegations against David Guillod, we acted swiftly and decisively as Primary Wave Entertainment has a zero-tolerance policy against sexual harassment and misconduct,” the company said in a statement. “We are investigating this thoroughly, including whether Intellectual Artists Management deliberately covered this up in 2015 during our merger discussions.”
Los Feliz
In January 2015, a month after the retreat, Guillod invited his young actress client to dinner at his home in Los Angeles’ Los Feliz neighborhood. They drank sake, then went to a bar, where they met up with her friend. Though the actress and Guillod had known each other for years — a relationship she describes as professional and he describes as dating — her friend said she had only met Guillod one other time.
All three then returned to his home, where both women said Guillod gave them glasses of red wine.
“I remember I didn’t even finish my glass, and it was atomically like from zero to 100 in terms of drunkenness,” said the friend, who told TheWrap she had had two drinks before the wine. “The way you get after you have like six drinks where you move really slowly. Time just kind of moves so fast. Chunks of time are missing. The next thing I remember is we were in bed. Sexual things were happening.”
At one point, she said, she ran to the bathroom and threw up. When she returned, Guillod climbed on top of her and had sex with her, she said. “I had no idea, to me it almost felt like there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn’t operating from me. I felt like my body was just kind of blacking out but I was just watching it.”
At some point, both she and the actress saw the blood, she said. They still have no idea where it came from.
“I realized I was covered in blood and so was she,” the actress told TheWrap. “I had a handprint on me. The sheets were all covered in it.”
“For some reason there was blood on the sheets and there was like blood on us,” said the friend, who was interviewed separately from the actress. “I don’t know where it came from.”
The actress also said that throughout the night she remembered blacking out and coming to. When she realized she was naked in a bloody bed, she said, she panicked, striking both Guillod and her friend, and then fled. The friend called another friend to pick her up.
Both women said Guillod told them the next morning that they had had sex. The friend went to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy and STD test, she said.
Both women said nothing like this had ever happened before — no three-way sex, no sex with another woman, and absolutely no sexual interest in David Guillod.
The friend said she initially felt ashamed, and even moved out of state because of what happened. It took her a long time to realize it was rape, she said.
“It wasn’t consensual. He completely took advantage of us,” she said. “I feel like he had this in his mind the whole night.”
The actress said she initially couldn’t believe Guillod would rape her because he had been supportive of her career and once even loaned her $5,000.
Guillod’s team maintains that the sex was consensual. To show that Guillod dated the actress, they produced texts between them from after the 2015 incident, in which he propositioned her for sex, and she played along while making excuses, or brushing him off until some future, unspecified date.
The actress told TheWrap that she did not remember the specific texts, but said that despite joking with him routinely, she never had sex with him except the time he raped her and her friend.
The actress has been direct with TheWrap about flirting with Guillod, saying she had been warned that he expected it of female clients. She said they only met occasionally to talk about her career — never for dates.
But after reading Barth’s account on TheWrap of being drugged and sexually assaulted by the manager, she decided to come forward. Though Barth didn’t name Guillod in her initial post, the actress recognized him by his behavior. Any shred of doubt about whether Guillod had raped her and her friend disappeared, she said.
“I felt so guilty, like it was my fault, because I had flirted with him,” the actress said. “But flirting doesn’t mean he can rape me. Even if he discredits me, say whatever you want about me, what is your excuse to the other girl, who feels as if she was raped, drugged and humiliated?”