Dustin Hoffman accused of sexual harassment

Dustin Hoffman has been accused of sexual harassment against a 17-year-old intern in 1985.

According to The Guardian, writer Anna Graham Hunter alleges that the actor, now 80, groped her on the set of TV movie Death of a Salesman and spoke inappropriately about sex with her.

“He asked me to give him a foot massage my first day on set; I did,” Hunter wrote in the Hollywood Reporter. “He was openly flirtatious, he grabbed my ass, he talked about sex to me and in front of me. One morning I went to his dressing room to take his breakfast order; he looked at me and grinned, taking his time. Then he said, ‘I’ll have a hard-boiled egg … and a soft-boiled clitoris.’ His entourage burst out laughing. I left, speechless. Then I went to the bathroom and cried.”

Hunter detailed Hoffman’s alleged treatment of her over her five weeks on set in a diary that she mailed to her sister at the time. “Today, when I was walking Dustin to his limo, he felt my ass four times,” she wrote. “I hit him each time, hard, and told him he was a dirty old man.”

She claimed that on set, she was told to put up with his behavior by a supervisor who told her to “sacrifice” some of her values for the sake of the production.

“At 49, I understand what Dustin Hoffman did as it fits into the larger pattern of what women experience in Hollywood and everywhere,” she wrote, looking back. “He was a predator, I was a child, and this was sexual harassment. As to how it fits into my own pattern, I imagine I’ll be figuring that out for years to come.”

Hoffman has responded to the article with an apology: “I have the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”