As Gary Oldman picked up his first Oscar on Sunday, for his performance as British wartime leader Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour”, older allegations of physical abuse by the actor began to resurface on social media.
At a time when Hollywood is stepping up its response to sexual harassment, with top actresses at the helm of movements like Times Up and Me Too, Oldman receiving this prestigious award has come under scrutiny.
People are taking to social media to criticise the exceptions that Hollywood has made for certain men, such as Gary Oldman this Oscar season and Casey Affleck in the previous year.
In 2001, Oldman’s first wife Donya Fiorentino filed legal papers in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that Oldman hit her with a telephone three or four times on her face in front of their children as she tried to dial 911.
According to New York Daily News, Fiorentino said, “As I picked up the phone to call the police, Gary put his hand on my neck and squeezed. I backed away, with the phone receiver in my hand. I tried to dial 911. Gary grabbed the phone receiver from my hand, and hit me in the face with the telephone receiver three or four times. Both of the children were crying.”
Oldman denied the charges as half-truths and also called Donya a ‘fantasist’ who ruined their marriage with her addiction. The charges were never proven and Oldman was granted custody of both their children.
In an interview with Daily Mail, Oldman’s first wife Donya spoke about their marriage and said that she felt empowered after hearing other women speak up because of the Me Too movement.
She told the Mail, “He is a great actor. Was he a great husband? No.” She also alleged, “he yelled at me constantly, ruined my life and stole my children.”
Even if some argue that Oldman can be at the Oscars because the allegations remain unproven, he vocally defended Mel Gibson’s anti-semitic and racist remarks in an interview with Playboy in 2014.
In a rant he had said, “Well, if I called Nancy Pelosi a c**t — and I’ll go one better, a f***ing useless c**t — I can’t really say that. But Bill Maher and Jon Stewart can, and nobody’s going to stop them from working because of it. Bill Maher could call someone a f*g and get away with it. He said to Seth MacFarlane this year, ‘I thought you were going to do the Oscars again. Instead they got a lesbian.’ He can say something like that. Is that more or less offensive than Alec Baldwin saying to someone in the street, ‘You f**?’ I don’t get it. We’re all f***ing hypocrites. That’s what I think about it. The policeman who arrested him has never used the word ‘n**ger’ or ‘that f***ing Jew?’”
He had also slighted away political correctness in the outrageous interview, saying, “I just think political correctness is crap. I think it’s like, take a f***ing joke.”
In 2006, Mel Gibson had said, “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world,” while being arrested. He also told his then partner Oksana Grigorieva that he hoped she got “raped by a pack of n**gers.”
In 2013, Alec Baldwin was accused of calling a paparazzi a “c**k sucking f*g”.
Other than Gary Oldman, Ryan Seacrest who has also been accused of sexual harassment, was spotted talking to stars at the Oscars. Basketball player Kobe Braynt, who has a rape allegation against him, received that award for Best Animated Short Film ‘Dear Basketball’.
James Franco, whose presence in the Golden Globe stirred up a controversy since he too has been accused of sexual harassment, gave this year’s Oscars a miss, as did 2017 Oscar winner Casey Affleck.
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