Nearly 200 additional women have come forward with allegations of sexual harassment by director James Toback, Los Angeles Times reporter Glenn Whipp tweeted on Monday.
Whipp is the reporter behind a bombshell report published Sunday detailing claims by 38 women — 31 of which were on the record — who said that Toback had sexually harassed them. One actress said Toback rubbed his crotch against her leg, while another said Toback told her he would “love nothing more than to masturbate while looking into my eyes.”
Updating again: Since this story published on Sunday, 193 additional women have contacted me to talk about Toback. https://t.co/beVGHWpdmc
— Glenn Whipp (@GlennWhipp) October 23, 2017
Toback is one of several entertainment industry figures facing accusations of sexual misconduct in the aftermath of the harassment scandal that led to the downfall of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Many women who spoke with The Times said that the news about Weinstein caused memories of Toback’s abuse to surface.
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“Today, I cried for the first time since then about it,” indie rock guitarist and former actress Louise Post said. “I was crying for the 20-year-old woman who lost something vital that day — her innocence.”
Response from Hollywood has been swift, with “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn saying that a family member had told him that Toback assaulted her and that he has tried to warn people about him.
“When I lived in New York, in the ‘nineties, this dude was EVERYWHERE,” Gunn wrote. “He essentially goes up to women and says, ‘Hey, I’m James Toback, and I’m a famous director, and I feel like there’s a connection between us.’ Then he shows them some article on himself or some other artifact to prove he is who he is, and tries to get them to go somewhere else with him.”
