Allegations involving director Bryan Singer" class="company-link">Bryan Singer’s sexual misconduct and on-set unprofessionalism have followed him around for most of his career, but a story in The Atlantic published on Wednesday introduces four more men who are accusing Singer of various violations including rape and molestation.
Singer denied all allegations through his lawyer, Andrew Brettler, who also emphasized to The Atlantic that Singer had never been either charged with a crime or arrested. But the accounts corroborated at length in the investigation indicate a well-burnished, Hollywood-adjacent system that kept Singer at the center of a group of young boys who were brought to him at his request.
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Victor Valdovinos, who was a 13-year-old extra on Singer’s 1998 film Apt Pupil, told the outlet that Singer had repeatedly assaulted him over the course of one day on set. After sequestering the young man in an isolated space where the movie was being shot, Singer “grabbed my genitals and started masturbating it” and “rubbed his front part on me,” Valdovinos said. “He did it all with this smile…I was frozen. Speechless. He came back to where I was in the locker room throughout the day to molest me.”
After the alleged assault, Valdovinos, who had been a high-achieving student and a promising athlete, stopped attending classes and eventually dropped out of school—he’s since had trouble keeping a job and spent a year in jail. “What if he never did this to me—would I be a different person?” Valdovinos asked. “Would I be more successful? Would I be married?”
The other accusers in the story, all of whom use pseudonyms, allege that they had sexual encounters with Singer during parties he was known for throwing at his Beverly Hills mansion in the latter half of the 1990s. Two men say they were 17 at the time, and one man says he was 15 (the age of consent in California is 18).
While some of the sources included in the story say there was a degree of seduction in their interactions with Singer, the specific instances of assault and misconduct referenced seem both antagonistic and disturbing.
Michael Egan, who in 2014 sued Singer and three other men who’d been involved with a start-up called Digital Entertainment Network, said that the executives “maintained and exploited boys in a sordid sex ring.” Egan also claimed that in one instance the director spit on his buttocks, spanked him and forced cocaine into his face before raping him.
