Another woman has come forward to accuse Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman of sexual misconduct.
This time, the accuser is a co-star, who worked with Hoffman in the Broadway production of Death of a Salesman in the 1980s.
In a first-person essay written for the Hollywood Reporter, Kathryn Rossette said that working alongside Hoffman, who had been one of her acting idols prior to that point, was a “horrific, demoralizing, and abusive” experience.
The alleged misconduct began while the show was still in rehearsal, when one afternoon after lunch Hoffman reportedly invited her to his hotel room and asked for a back rub.
“He pulled off his shirt,” Rossette wrote.
“I didn’t know what to do. I said we had to be back at rehearsal in 15 minutes. He said, ‘Just a quickie.’ I was a nervous wreck, but sat on the bed and gave a very lame rub.”
Rossette co-starred with Hoffman in eight shows a week, and said that he would routinely put his hands under her clothes when she was on the edge of stage preparing for a particular scene.
“He kept it up and got more and more aggressive,” Rossetter wrote in the.
“One night he actually started to stick his fingers inside me. Night after night I went home and cried. I withdrew and got depressed and did not have any good interpersonal relationships with the cast.”
Hoffman’s representatives did not provide a statement to the Hollywood Reporter, but that actor’s attorneys put the newspaper in contact with multiple people who worked on the production, who reportedly did not have a recollection of what Rossetter was alleging.
“It just doesn’t ring true,”said TomKelly, the production stage manager.
“Given my position, it’s insulting to say this kind of activity would go on to the extent of sexual violation.”
Dustin Hoffman has previously been accused of sexual misconduct by two women who worked on film productions with him decades ago. One, a production assistant, was a teenager at the time of the alleged sexual harassment.
[Feature image: Associated Press]