Ian McKellen Puts Blame on Actresses for Hollywood Sex Scandals

Ian McKellen
ROME, ITALY - NOVEMBER 01: Ian McKellen walks a red carpet during the 12th Rome Film Fest at Auditorium Parco Della Musica on November 1, 2017 in Rome, Italy. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)

X-Men and Lord of the Rings star Sir Ian McKellen had some strong words concerning the current sex scandal that has rocked Hollywood to its core. The legendary stage and movie star says that women are partially responsible for the culture of sexual abuse that has gripped the industry.

McKellen gave a talk at Oxford Union where he addressed the recent sexual scandal that has gripped Hollywood.

He first addressed the need to call out people and he understood how it can be difficult for victims:

People must be called out and it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that.

He then went on to detail his own experiences in the ’60s and how many actresses actively worked to build the terrible Hollywood sexual culture that is currently being exposed:

I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether. But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early Sixties, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs  he got from women who were wanting jobs. . . some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’ — directors’ rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.

That was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim. Madness. People have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do.

Fellow actor Noomi Rapace, who is about to star in Netflix’s Bright, echoed Sir Ian McKellen’s assertion about women also being partly to blame for the Hollywood sex scandal.  She told a Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, “Many women have played the game and climbed the ladder. They have used the game to their advantage.”

McKellen and Rapace are not alone in their belief of putting some of the blame on women. Actress Pamela Anderson spoke to Megyn Kelly about the fallout from the initial allegations against Harvey Weinstein. She points out that in many situations it wasn’t a huge secret to why you might have been summoned to a hotel room.

She tells Kelly:

When I came to Hollywood, I, of course, had a lot of offers to do private auditions and things that made absolutely no sense. Common sense ― don’t go into a hotel room alone, if someone answers the door in a bathrobe, you know, leave.

Anderson even stated she wasn’t’ surprised by all of the accusations coming out now.

No, I think it was common knowledge that certain producers or certain people in Hollywood are people to avoid. Privately. You know what you’re getting into if you go to a hotel room alone.

Watch:

McKellen not only placed the blame on women, he also warned about false accusations:

I assume nothing but good will come out of these revelations, even though some people get wrongly accused — there’s that side of it as well.

Sir Ian Ian McKellen is definitely on to something. Not all of the blame for this reprehensible Hollywood culture should go on men. There are women to blame as well. And his words of wisdom about false accusations ring clear. We must always maintain innocence until proven guilty. It’s one of our defining traits as a Western nation.

Do you agree with Sir Ian McKellen, Noomi Rapace, and Pamela Anderson?

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