Ellen Page Says Brett Ratner 'Outed Me' in Powerful Post About Sexual Harassment in Hollywood
Ellen Page is speaking up.
In a powerful Facebook post on Friday, the 30-year-old actress claimed she was outed as gay by Brett Ratner when she was just 18 years old, and hadn't even "come out to myself."
“'You should f**k her to make her realize she’s gay.' He said this about me during a cast and crew 'meet and greet' before we began filming, X Men: The Last Stand. I was eighteen years old. He looked at a woman standing next to me, ten years my senior, pointed to me and said: 'You should f**k her to make her realize she’s gay.' He was the film’s director, Brett Ratner," Page alleges at the beginning of her essay.
"I was a young adult who had not yet come out to myself. I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak. I felt violated when this happened. I looked down at my feet, didn’t say a word and watched as no one else did either," she continued. "He 'outed' me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic. I proceeded to watch him on set say degrading things to women. I remember a woman walking by the monitor as he made a comment about her 'flappy p**sy.'"
RELATED: Olivia Munn, Natasha Henstridge Accuse Brett Ratner of Sexual Misconduct
Anna Paquin, who co-starred with Page in X-Men: The Last Stand, took to Twitter hours after Page shared her story to offer her support, writing, "I was there when that comment was made. I stand with you."
Page, who publicly came out as gay in 2014, continued her Facebook post, explaining that the alleged "aggressive outing" left her with "long standing feelings of shame." She also claimed, however, that her encounters with Ratner weren't the only times she has experienced sexual harassment in Hollywood.
"When I was sixteen a director took me to dinner (a professional obligation and a very common one). He fondled my leg under the table and said, 'You have to make the move, I can’t.' I did not make the move and I was fortunate to get away from that situation," she alleged. "I was sexually assaulted by a grip months later. I was asked by a director to sleep with a man in his late twenties and to tell them about it. I did not. This is just what happened during my sixteenth year, a teenager in the entertainment industry."
Page, who described acting in Woody Allen's To Rome With Love, as the "biggest regret of my career," called attention to the stories of marginalized groups who are often silenced in their struggle for justice, and those who "chose to look the other way" as powerful men continued their path of abuse.
"I want to see these men have to face what they have done. I want them to not have power anymore. I want them to sit and think about who they are without their lawyers, their millions, their fancy cars, houses upon houses, their 'playboy' status and swagger," she wrote. "What I want the most, is for this to result in healing for the victims. For Hollywood to wake up and start taking some responsibility for how we all have played a role in this."
"Don’t allow this behavior to be normalized. Don’t compare wrongs or criminal acts by their degrees of severity. Don’t allow yourselves to be numb to the voices of victims coming forward. Don’t stop demanding our civil rights," she pleaded. "I am grateful to anyone and everyone who speaks out against abuse and trauma they have suffered. You are breaking the silence. You are revolution."
ET has reached out to Ratner's rep for comment.
See more on the allegations against the director in the video below.
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