Worldwide Production Agency has dropped Hollywood stunt coordinator Joel Kramer after Eliza Dushku accused him of molesting her during production of the 1994 film “True Lies.”
The talent agency “elected to part ways” with Kramer based on the allegations, according to a statement sent to Deadline.
“Such behavior is unacceptable and entirely at odds with the standards of conduct we demand of ourselves, and expect from our clients,” Richard Caleel, the agency’s president and general counsel, said.
In a Facebook post Saturday, Dushku accused Kramer of sexually abusing her in his Miami hotel room when she was 12 and he was 36. Kramer had “methodically” built her parents’ trust over months, before he offered to take her swimming at the stunt crew’s hotel pool one day, Dushku wrote.
According to her Facebook post:
I remember vividly how he methodically drew the shades and turned down the lights; how he cranked up the air-conditioning to what felt like freezing levels, where exactly he placed me on one of the two hotel room beds, what movie he put on the television (Coneheads); how he disappeared in the bathroom and emerged, naked, bearing nothing but a small hand towel held flimsy at his mid-section. I remember what I was wearing (my favorite white denim shorts, thankfully, secured enough for me to keep on). I remember how he laid me down on the bed, wrapped me with his gigantic writhing body, and rubbed all over me. He spoke these words: “You’re not going to sleep on me now sweetie, stop pretending you’re sleeping,” as he rubbed harder and faster against my catatonic body. When he was ‘finished’, he suggested, “I think we should be careful…,” [about telling anyone] he meant.
Dushku also accused Kramer of intentionally injuring her during a “stunt-gone-wrong” soon after an adult she confided in appeared to confront him about the abuse.
Kramer called the allegations “entirely untrue,” in an email sent to HuffPost on Monday.
“These allegations are a well-crafted fabrication by Ms. Dushku,” Kramer wrote. “I do not understand what motivated Ms. Dushku to make this statement and I hope that she can find it in her conscious to correct this injustice and return my good name to me.”
Kramer told HuffPost that he texted Caleel on Saturday, denying Dushku’s accusations but telling him he would “understand” if the agency chose to drop him.
Several people close to Dushku, including her mother and former agent, have come forward to say the child actress told them about the molestation at the time.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who played the mother of Dushku’s character in “True Lies,” wrote in a blog post for HuffPost Sunday that Dushku told her about the abuse a few years ago.
“I was shocked and saddened then and still am today,” Curtis wrote. “What allegedly happened to Eliza, away from the safety net of all of us and our purview is a terrible, terrible thing to learn about and have to reconcile. The truth will set us all free.”
Read Dushku’s full post below:
This story has been updated with a statement from Joel Kramer.