In light of the allegations of sexual assault and misconduct aimed at Harvey Weinstein, and the subsequent influx of claims made by people in the film industry in the last few weeks, six women have now come out to do the same for filmmaker Brett Ratner, accusing the director and producer of various counts of sexual harassment and misconduct. According to a report by The Los Angeles Times, actress Natasha Henstridge was assaulted by him when she was 19 years old. Henstridge was a fashion model at the time, and was watching movies with friends at Ratner's apartment in New York, when she fell asleep on his couch. She awoke to find her friends gone, and as she went to leave, the then-music video director, who was in his early 20s at the time, blocked the doorway with his body and wouldn't move. Hendtridge claims she then began touching himself, then forced her to perform oral sex on him. "He strong-armed me in a real way. He physically forced himself on me," she told the Times. She kept it to herself as she saw him develop into a successful filmmaker, directing movies such as Rush Hour and X-Men: The Last Stand. After the recent allegations that have come forward, as well as the #MeToo campaign, she said she could no longer remain silent. Ratner's attorney, Martin Singer, "categorically" denied the accusations, telling the times that "I have represented Mr. Ratner for two decades, and no woman has ever made a claim against him for sexual misconduct or sexual harassment. But there have been other women who have made similar claims against Ratner. Olivia Munn said that when she visited the set of the Ratner-directed After the Sunset while she was an aspiring actress. She was delivering a meal to his trailer when he exposed himself to her before masturbating. "He walked out... with his belly sticking out, no pants on, shrimp cocktail in one hand and he was furiously masturbating in the other," Munn said. "And before I literally could even figure out where to escape or where to look, he ejaculated." One of the most unsettling parts of this encounter is the reaction she received when she told the man who had asked her to deliver the food. "It wasn't a shock. It wasn't surprise," Munn recalled. "It was just, 'Ugh, sorry about that.'" She wrote about the incident in 2010 but didn't name him, the following year Ratner identified himself as that director, but claimed that the event didn't happen that way. He later said of the Vietnamese-American actress: "I used to date Olivia Munn, I will be honest with everybody here. When she was ‘Lisa.’ That was the problem. She wasn’t Asian back then. I banged her a few times ... but I forgot her." He later said he felt horrible about the comments, while Munn denied ever having a romance with him. "I've made specific, conscientious choices not to work with Brett Ratner," she said, "It feels as if I keep going up against the same bully at school who just won't quit. You just hope that enough people believe the truth and for enough time to pass so that you can't be connected to him anymore." These allegations don't come out of nowhere, as the 48-year-old Ratner has a certain reputation for speaking of his sexual prowess. At the Hollywood Reporter's annual Women in Entertainment breakfast, Tina Fey said: "Brett Ratner is here. In his defense, he thought this was a thing where you could eat breakfast off of 100 women". He also has spent years in the company of James Toback, who was recently accused of sexual misconduct by more than 300 women. Earlier this year Ratner referred to Toback and Roman Polanski, who was convicted of having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977, as his "closest friends". Actress Jaime Ray Newman said that, after he swapped seats to sit next to her on a plane, within five minutes he was describing the sex acts he wanted to perform on her in explicit detail, before showing her nude photos of his then-girlfriend. "He was graphically describing giving me oral sex and how he was addicted to it," she said. Actress Katherine Towne said that he made unwanted advances on her at a party, "He started to come on to me in a way that was so extreme. I think it's pretty aggressive to go in the bathroom with someone you don't know and close the door". Actress Jorina King, who was told she needed to show him her breasts in his trailer, said that "He feels entitled, that this is what he wants, this is how it is going to be, and this feels like normal business to him". Eri Sasaki, then a 21-year-old part-time model and aspiring singer, said she experienced something similar on set. Ratner approached her, running his finger down her stomach and asked if she wanted to go into the bathroom with him. When she declined, he said: "Don't you want to be famous?" His attorney has called this a "ridiculous claim", and referred to other allegations as "absurd", but Ratner himself hasn't made any comment on these recent allegations as of yet.

When the #MeToo movement burst onto the scene back in October 2017, hundreds of famous women jumped at the chance to finally be able to share their stories. However, there was at least one actress who kept schtum: Megan Fox.

Now, the 32-year-old has opened up about why she didn't publicly speak out on her experiences with sexual harassment and assault - and why she still won't be sharing them anytime soon.

In a revealing interview with the New York Times, the Jennifer's Body star admitted that she felt excluded from the movement due to the reaction to previous stories she had told, as well as her image as a sex symbol.

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Stating that she was "ahead of her time", the mother-of-three said: "My words were taken and used against me in a way that was -- at that time in my life, at that age and dealing with that level of fame -- really painful. I don’t want to say this about myself, but let’s say that I was ahead of my time and so people weren’t able to understand. Instead, I was rejected because of qualities that are now being praised in other women coming forward."

She continued: "And, because of my experience, I feel it’s likely that I will always be just out of the collective understanding. I don’t know if there will ever be a time where I’m considered normal or relatable or likable."

In addition, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2014 actress acknowledged that she had plenty of personal accounts of sexual harassment, but claimed she would not be coming forward with them due to fear that she wouldn't be a \"sympathetic victim\".

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\"One could assume that I probably have quite a few stories, and I do -- I didn’t speak out for many reasons,\" she said. \"I just didn’t think based on how I’d been received by people, and by feminists, that I would be a sympathetic victim. And, I thought if ever there were a time where the world would agree that it’s appropriate to victim-shame someone, it would be when I come forward with my story.\"

Fox, who shares three children with her 45-year-old actor husband, Brian Austin Green, also opened up about the idea of punishment when asked if she wished to share any stories now.

\"I also feel like I’m not the universal hammer of justice,\" she claimed. \"This is not to say that other people shouldn’t do what they feel is right. But in my circumstance, I don’t feel it’s my job to punish someone because they did something bad to me.\"

In the past, the actress has shared what it's like to be considered a sex symbol in Hollywood, calling out several incidents of sexist behaviour. Ten years ago, she revealed that on the set of Transformers, director Michael Bay had consistently told her to "be hot" when she asked for direction.

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\"'Mike,' I’ll say, 'Who am I talking to? Where am I supposed to be looking at?' And he responds, 'Just be sexy.' I get mad when people talk to me like that,\" she said.

In addition, she has revealed that she was made to dance underneath a waterfall by Bay when she was just 15 years old.

\"The first time I ever met him, I was 15 and I was an extra on Bad Boys II,\" she told Jimmy Kimmel. \"We were shooting this club scene, and they brought me in, and I was wearing a stars and stripes bikini and a red cowboy hat, and six-inch heels. And they took me to Mike and he approved it.

\"And they said, ‘You know, Michael, she’s 15, so you can’t sit her at the bar and she can’t have a drink in her hand.’ So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet. And that’s… At 15. I was in 10th grade. So that’s sort of a microcosm of how Bay’s mind works.\"

Although Megan has decided to keep most of her stories to herself this time, we can all agree that her new interview is a wake-up call to people who believe we've progressed beyond victim-blaming after #MeToo.

Megan Fox has released a statement as fans demand that Michael Bay apologize to her following numerous claims on social media that she was mistreated and sexualized by Hollywood when she was a teenager.

It all began when an interview from 2009 with Jimmy Kimmel resurfaced where Megan discussed being sexualized by Michael Bay in Bad Boys II when she was 15-years-old.

You can see the clip below: 

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She said at the time: "They were shooting this club scene and they brought me in, and I was wearing a Stars-and-Stripes Bikini and a red cowboy hat. And six-inch heels.

"And he approved it, and they said, you know, 'Michael, she's 15, so you can't sit her at the bar and she can't have a drink in her hand'. So his solution to that problem was to then have me dancing underneath a waterfall getting soaking wet."

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As the audience laughed, Megan said: "That's a microcosm of how Bay's mind works", as Jimmy responded: "Well that's really a microcosm of how all our minds work but some of us have the decency to repress those thoughts."

While the audience took this as an opportunity to slam Michael, Meghan instead wanted it to be used as an opportunity to slam Hollywood as a whole, saying: that she "was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner".

She wrote on Instagram in a series of slides: "Please hear me when I thank you for your support. But these specific instances were inconsequential in a long and arduous journey along which I have endured some genuinely harrowing experiences in a ruthlessly misogynistic industry."

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Discussing working with Michael, the address said: "I did 'work' (me pretending to know how to hold a wrench) on one of Michael’s Ferrari’s during one of the audition scenes.

"It was at the Platinum Dunes studio parking lot, there were several other crew members and employees present and I was at no point undressed or anything similar.

"So as far as this particular audition story I was not underage at the time and I was not made to 'wash' or work on someone's cars in a way that was extraneous from the material in the actual script.

"I hope that whatever opinions are formed around these episodes will at least be seeded in the facts of the events."

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She continued: "When it comes to my direct experiences with Michael… I was never assaulted or preyed upon in what I felt was a sexual manner."

Mega said she was grateful to everyone who was speaking out about their experiences and said "there are many names that deserve to be going viral in cancel culture".

She added: "I'm thankful to all of you who are brave enough to speak out and I’m grateful to all of you who are taking it upon yourselves to support, uplift, and bring comfort to those who have been harmed by a violent and toxic societal paradigm."

Reese Witherspoon has added her name to the long list of women coming out against sexual harassment in the film industry, following the many allegations directed at producer Harvey Weinstein in recent weeks. In a speech she made at Elle's Women In Hollywood event this week, she revealed that she has had "multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault" throughout her career. Before introducing her Big Little Lies co-star Laura Dern at the event, her speech touched on issues of sexism within the industry before Witherspoon revealed she had been assaulted by a director when she was only 16-years-old. "This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood," she said, "for women all over the world, for men in a lot of situations and a lot of industries that are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths." She then went on to speak about her own personal experiences with harassment and assault, and how the recent statements made by other women have given her strength; "I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly, and I found it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate. A lot of the feelings I’ve been having about anxiety, about being honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier or taking action. "True disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger that I felt at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment. And I wish I could tell you that that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly, it wasn’t. "I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault, and I don’t speak about them very often, but after hearing all the stories these past few days and hearing these brave women speak up tonight, the things that we’re kind of told to sweep under the rug and not talk about, it’s made me want to speak up and speak up loudly because I felt less alone this week than I’ve ever felt in my entire career." It isn't surprising to see the actress speak up for victims of sexual harassment and assault, as she has been involved with women's advocacy organisations, including serving as the honorary chair of the Avon Foundation, which focuses on breast cancer research and the prevention of domestic violence. In 2016, she created Hello Sunshine along with media and tech industry executive Kerry Tucker, a production company with a focus on female-driven stories. So far the company has produced three films and one TV show, which includes the Oscar-nominated Wild (in which Witherspoon stars) and Gone Girl. [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BZl-iC1hkzd/]] "For the young women sitting in this room, life is going to be different for you because we have you, we have your back. And that makes me feel better because, gosh, it’s about time. "And I just want to say, there’s a lot of people here who negotiate quite frequently with different companies and heads of companies, and I think maybe during your next negotiation, this is a really prudent time to ask important questions like: "Who are your top female executives? Do those women have green-light power? How many women are on the board of your company? How many women are in a key position of decision-making at your company? Asking questions like that, I found, it seems so obvious, but people don’t ask those questions." "If we can raise consciousness and really help create change, that’s what’s going to change this industry and change society," she said to the audience, "So I’m so sad that I have to talk about these issues, but it would be, I would be remiss not to." [[instagramwidget||https://www.instagram.com/p/BZMTaYvhD1a/]] While seeing so many men and women report the harassment and instances of assault they have received from those in powerful positions in Hollywood, the positive note we can take from people like Reese Witherspoon is that we can continue this conversation and work to stamp out this kind of behaviour in the future.

Bella Thorne has spoken out about a director who accused her of "flirting" with him when she was just 10 years old.

The 25-year-old appeared on Emily Ratajkowski's podcast High Low to describe her experiences of being sexualized and shamed as an adolescent growing up in the spotlight.

Thorne explained that she had been in a director session, where she read her lines for the director of an upcoming project when he accused her of "flirting with him" and making him "feel uncomfortable."

She said that she "still go[es] back" to the interaction "every day," and that it drives her "crazy." "I … am trying to find almost fault in myself," she added, saying: "Like, 'What did you do, Bella? What did you do? You made him feel like this.'"

Though, the former Disney Channel actress says she had to remind herself that, at age 10, she was "not the problem." Thorne then told Ratajkowski: "I don't give a f**k what the f**k I said.

"I don't care if I said, 'Eat my p***y right now. [I was] 10 years old. Why ever would you think that [I was flirting]?"

“Also you're in a director session, you can't really say or do anything. You do the scene, you say hello and you walk out. There is no time to go sit on your lap or make you uncomfortable," she concluded.

Ratajkowski, 31, then reassured the actress and singer that she needs to "forgive" herself because at the time she was just "a f**king kid."

"If you need a more f**ked-up story of Hollywood and paedophilia and the sexualisation of children, I don't think there is one," she stated.

The model and author then recalled her own experience of being sexualized as a model by her agent at the age of 16, telling Thorne: "They pointed to my picture, and I was with my friend who was also modelling at the time with the same agency, and they were like, 'This face. This is how we know this girl gets f**ked. You've got to give a lesson, Emily, on this.'"

Fans of Thorne have since commented on the shocking nature of the director's complaints against the then-10-year-old, with one person writing: "Nothing is shocking now. That's how power works, f**king patriarchal leverage. A 10 year kid makes him uncomfortable??? There's something in his head. Gosh this world is [...]."

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The actress has previously been open about being sexually abused from the age of six, posting about her experiences on Instagram in solidarity with the #TimesUp movement.

"I was sexually abused and physically growing up from the day I can remember till I was 14..when I finally had the courage to lock my door at night and sit by it. All damn night. Waiting for someone to take advantage of my life again. Over and over I waited for it to stop and finally it did," she wrote.

"But some of us aren't as lucky to get out alive. Please today stand up for every soul Mistreated [sic]," Thorne added.

Featured image credit: Independent Photo Agency Srl / Alamy