“Entourage” actor Kevin Connolly has been accused of sexually assaulting “Girls” and “Orange Is the New Black” costume designer Gracie Cox at a 2005 wrap party for an indie film on which they had both worked.
“I want it to be known that he is dangerous,” Cox told the Daily Beast in a story published Wednesday, “and I want him to not get away with it any longer.”
In Cox’s account — which the Beast said she had shared with multiple individuals at the time and in the days following, including her therapist — Connolly led her into the VIP lounge area of the Manhattan night-spot Butter during a party for the completion of his directorial debut, “The Gardener of Eden,” on which Cox had worked as an assistant costumer.
“As soon as we were alone in that area, he started to kiss me. I didn’t know how to respond — but before I could even think about what to do about it, he pulled me into one of these little side (booths), and pulled down my pants, and turned me around, and within no time was inside of me. I was just in shock,” Cox told the Daily Beast. “There was not really a chance in my mind to object or resist. It just happened really fast,” she said, adding that Connolly did not use a condom. “I was completely caught off-guard.”
Connolly, speaking through his attorney Marty Singer, said he “adamantly denies that it was anything other than a mutual consensual encounter.” The statement added, “Kevin completely understands Amy’s displeasure with the consensual act that transpired between Kevin and Gracie 15 years ago, after production had wrapped and they were no longer working together on the movie. Kevin acknowledges the lack of professionalism on his part.”
According to Cox, Connolly had been “mildly flirtatious” with Cox throughout the course of the production, and that she “wasn’t interested” — especially since she understood Connolly was dating socialite Nicky Hilton at the time. Still, she said, “It just made me a little uncomfortable, because he was my boss. So not acknowledging the smiles or comments didn’t feel like an option.” Reps for Hilton, who now goes by Nicky Hilton Rothschild since her marriage in 2015, did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Cox said that Connolly was dismissive of her immediately after the back-room encounter. “He took a pillow off of a couch, threw it at me, and told me to ‘clean myself up,’” she told the Daily Beast. “He then told me that he was going to leave and to wait a few minutes, because he didn’t want anyone to see us together.”
Cox said that immediately afterward, she told Amy Westcott, the head costume designer on “The Gardener of Eden,” and that Westcott angrily confronted Connolly at the party — a dispute that was observed by multiple witnesses, according to the Beast.
There is no indication that Cox ever filed criminal charges against Connolly; Cox told the Beast she had been in contact with Gloria Allred about representation in 2017, but that they had not ended up pursuing her case due to the statute of limitations. “It is the policy of our law firm that we do not comment on who does or does not contact us,” Allred said in a statement.
In 2019, New York state extended the statute of limitations on certain cases of rape and sex crimes from 10 years to 20 years; it’s unclear if that would apply to situations like Cox’s.
For the record: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story gave the incorrect year for the wrap party where the encounter occurred.