Charlize Theron has explained why she won't name the movie director who sexually harassed her, referring to him as a "scumbag".
Appearing on the Call Her Daddy podcast, the 49-year-old Oscar winner spoke about being asked to go to a director’s house late at night for what was supposed to be her first audition ever.
The incident took place back in 1994 when Theron was still finding her footing in Hollywood.
At the time, she told The Howard Stern Show that the male director greeted her at his door wearing pajamas and, at one point, put his hand on her knee.
“The little voice inside me definitely said, ‘This isn’t right,’” she recalled of that day early in her career. “But then the other voice in me says, ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe it is right.’”
During her conversation with host Alex Cooper, Theron revealed the unnamed director personally reached out to her after she shared her story.
“This guy, he got a little nervous for a while there. I’ve never said his name because honestly, I don’t want the story to be about him. It’s not because I’m protecting him or anything, but he got nervous for a little bit,” she explained.
When asked why the director was uneasy with her speaking out, Theron said: “Because he heard me tell the story, and he knew it was about him, and he wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it, which is classic, isn’t it?”
She believes her interview with Stern made the director start “panicking.”
“He was waiting for me,” she said. “And I just realized, like, I won’t even f***ing say your name because you know you’re the scumbag. You know it’s you and if anybody ever asked me about him, I would be completely honest.”
Theron admitted she enjoys that he’s still on edge about it, adding: “I kind of like that a little more.”
Following the incident, Theron said she was “furious” with herself for not acting differently in the moment.
“I was like, ‘Who the f*** are you? Why the f*** would you allow that? Why?’” she remembered.
Theron continued: “I still get those feelings, because it’s you know yourself so well and there’s something that really kind of like breaks my heart to the core when people in this very luxurious manner talk about ‘Well, you know what, next time you should fucking say something. Like, don’t wait 20 years.’
"This kind of like callous way of not wanting to believe. That’s really what it boils down to.”
The actress compared victims being questioned about why they didn’t come forward sooner to being called “a f***ing p*ssy.”
Ultimately, she insisted: “I think that we need to tell these stories so that we can understand that we’re not alone.”
Theron told Cooper: “I don’t care what anybody else says because you can’t hurt me more than I hurt myself over what happened that day.”