Lisa Rinna told Popeater a story of a very blatant pretty disturbing request for sex in return for a role. She said that at the age of 24 she was promised a role on television, with the producer telling her while she was in his office to strip off her panties and bend over and the job was hers!
Lisa Rinna tells me her dishy new novel, ‘Starlit,’ is an inside look at “life on and off the red carpet, full of scandalous backstabbing and lots of sex.” She describes it as a “roman à clef,” or a novel that describes true events but is disguised as fiction. However, the most shocking real-life event that Lisa left out of the impossible-to-put-down read is a true story about herself and the infamous Hollywood casting couch.
“I lost a role on a BIG TV series because I wouldn’t bend over a chair in a producers office for ‘just a quickie,'” Lisa admits to me for the first time. “‘Just pull your panties down and bend over and the role is yours,’ he said to me.”
Lisa was just 24 years old at the time and walked away in tears after the disgusting encounter, but that hasn’t stopped her from thinking about the producer or that moment every day.
A friend tells me that Lisa has never revealed the producer’s name to anyone, including husband Harry Hamlin, but many years later, during the height of her ‘Melrose Place’ success, she saw the man that propositioned her all those years ago on an industry red carpet. He stopped to say congratulations and she told him, “I know everyone in this town and if you ever do what you did to me again to anyone else I will tell everyone your dirty secret.”
[From Popeater]
Now I want to know who that producer was! That incident happened in 1987 so it’s likely we’ve never heard of the guy and that it wasn’t someone particularly famous, or else why didn’t she tell her husband? It’s surprising to hear that this happened to her, but Gwyneth Paltrow told a similar story recently and I guess it’s more common than you might think.
Popeater also has some video interviews with Lisa and Harry, who are each promoting their books out on the same day along with their reality series. Harry sounds a little tipsy, but you can hardly blame him. The store they run in Sherman Oaks, CA got robbed the morning they did their press tour in NY, with Harry having to field a call about it on live television, on The Today Show. In terms of the rumors that they staged the break-in for publicity, Lisa got really worked up about it and said that there’s no way they faked that. I believe her and they both seemed very upset.
Has anyone seen her new show? You can watch it online if you’re in the US.
The casting couch is STILL alive and well and as disgusting as ever.
Harry Hamlin shows signs of early dementia IMO. it’s subtle but it’s there.
Hmm considering that experience why was she so supportive of Aaron Spelling off Melrose Place back when he fired that actress for getting pregnant even testifying for him in court?
Why would anyone care about her enough to read a book she wrote? She is such a nobody.
Love her new lips!!
I think this kinda stuff happens wayyyy more than any of us knows. You can only begin to think of the talentless “actors and singers” that have given it up!
I can’t help but think that those “casting couch” situations are reserved for less than talented eye-candy-only gals.
Not only do they depend upon the goodwill of the audiences, but apparently also on the powers that be.
What a sad lot in life that must be, blindly pursuing a delusion you call “your dream”, while people feed on and exploit your own cluelessness.
@Jean: Judgmental much? Meow.
“I think this kinda stuff happens wayyyy more than any of us knows. You can only begin to think of the talentless “actors and singers” that have given it up!”
my thoughts exactly. there are a lot of singers/actresses today that make me go “how in earth did he/she make it in this business?!”
Sad and disgusting. Maybe it’s naive to say so, but they should make it a union rule that anyone who this happens to must report it, and anyone who is proven to be demanding sex for roles needs to lose their hiring position. What a toxic environment for young people trying to make it in that industry. No wonder so many are so messed up.
Hmmm – @Jean….pretty sure this happens to particularly talented women as well – let’s not kid ourselves into presuming that licentious men save their ugly behavior for women (and men) who come in below some sort of imaginary talent threshold. Sexual harassment is sexual harassment, plain and simple, and being “clueless” is hardly why this happens.
@Mistral Its already on the books and it is illegal according to federal law to sexually harrass someone. If they could prove harassment in court they would win but it’s not that simple these high powered people have the influence to blacklist, and no one wants to offend the head of a network,or movie studio by testifying against them in a court of law. It isn’t like working at a bank where the human resource dept. has power over these jerks.
while I appreciate her threatening him, how would she ever know if he did it to someone else?
jean – “blindly pursuing a delusion you call “your dream”, ”
Really? And who says your dreams are not delusions to other people? Or do you not have dreams?
People who pursue their dreams have more courage in life than those who sit back and cry because nothing ever happens in their life.
And these “casting couch” situations are really humiliating and sad.
She’s so pretty….
@heatheradair
With the word “cluelessness” I was refering to people who embark on hopeless endeavors. How many “aspiring” actors/singers are wasting their lives, trying to become one of the lucky few?
I’m absolutely dead set against this “you can do anything you put your mind to” attitude as well as the notion that you can achieve anything if you just try hard enough.
It is the perfect set-up for failure, if there is no talent/ability/skill to build upon and back you up.
And no, I don’t think succesful actresses, (Blanchett, Streep, Theron etc.) who have made names for themselves (by way of their craft) are as likely to be in a casting couch situation as starlets who have nothing going for them but their looks.
Charlize Theron has had a “casting couch” situation:
“I thought it was a little odd that the audition was on a Saturday night at his house in Los Angeles, but I thought maybe that was normal. He was in his Hugh Hefner pajamas – I go inside and he’s offering me a drink, and I’m thinking, my God this acting stuff is very relaxed. But it soon becomes very clear what the situation was. I was like, ‘Not going to happen! Got the wrong girl, buddy!'”
Perverts don’t just exploit talentless starlets. Plenty of talented actresses & actors are treated the same way.
“How many “aspiring” actors/singers are wasting their lives, trying to become one of the lucky few?”
Helloooooooooooooo Ali Lohan.
seriously, someone (like Simon Cowell does on AI) needs to tell some of these wannabes that IT AIN’T GONNA HAPPEN. I know he’s meaner than he needs to be, but I SO agree when he tells people to figure out something else to do besides sing for a living. Just because you REALLY WANT IT doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
I’m all for having dreams (as in, GOALS), but they need to be REALISTIC, achievable ones.
@Kelly
You omitted the part that so much as said that this happened at the beginning of her acting career, when she was a vulnerable starlet and had yet to prove her acting chops.
Besides, I never said that exploitation only happened to talentless starlets, but I do believe that they fall victim to it more frequently than established actresses who are powerhouses in their own right.
Pretty much every actress; good, bad, or middle of the road, has fallen victim to some form of the casting couch at some point in their career. That is a fact. I’ve heard producers bragging about the actresses they’ve “bagged” or attempted to bag more than I cared to. This is not to say that they’ve all succumbed to the couch, just that they’ve been victim to at least an attempt.
What you have to wonder is how many “starlets” have caved in and submitted to all the scumbags who pull that, just to get the part they are after. All the ones *without* integrity or self-worth. That list has to be lonnnnnnng. Say what you will about Lisa Rinna.. but kudos to her for walking out on that slob… and job.
Why wouldnt the casting couch still happen?
Look at what non-celeb women have to put up with in the workplace everyday! I know of too many cases of sexual harassment where the man thinks it’s ‘cool’ or even ‘normal’ to hit on a female employee/co-worker.
I can tell you from actor friends of mine that its not just the gentlemen casting people either! Or casting men & ladies!
Yeah, now that miss paltrow has told this story everyone goes saying the same. I know, harassing is a common thing (unfortunately) but why now? Isn’t it only for more press?
What a lowly bunch.
Off topic…that woman needs to lighten up on the eye makeup. She looks like a long-lost Kardashian.
The casting couch is a reality, for both men and women. (Hollywood Boys Club). Also, many aspiring actors/actresses end up being escorts or doing porn just to pay the rent.
It also happens often in regular office situations…
I had someone once tell me that he would get me a job on a HUGE three part film if I would blow him. Pffft. I didn’t need or want a job THAT badly. And I’m in production, I quit acting over a decade ago.
She’s looking great without those lips! Good for her!
she looks great!
her lips look the same – is this before or after she deflated them?!
No big surprise, I’m sure that still happens all the time. And unfortunately I get why people don’t report it – there’s probably no actual proof, one’s word against another, and those harassed probably worry their career will be destroyed if they report it.
On a side note…is anyone really that interested in Lisa and her husband that they need 2 books and a reality show? I mean…come on.
Same topic. David Letterman should have been fired for similarly disgusting behavior.
And seeing as he admitted it on air for ratings there’s no doubting you got rewarded above real workers for sex with Dave at Late Night. Disturbing and illegal. Wish Lisa Rinna would out the guy so he couldn’t do it to others, she protected herself but others will keep getting harassed until she and Goopy name names.
It would be so bad ass if women (and guys harassed) in Hollywood would join together and name names to stop all this. One step in right direction.
There is a casting couch and it is not just producers and directors that staff it.. Pun intended…
have you ever seen direct to cable movies that have all the T & A that you can shake a stick at in it??? I think that what happens is that a bunch of actors and directors and producers bang the chicks with promise of a role in the near future. Once the combination of them get enough eye candy together, they throw together a throw away movie with as many as they can at a cost that doesn’t hurt them at all.
So in my opinion the couch is long before you have to reach the directors and producers…
Obviously I have no proof, other then what I watch on cable…
“Perverts don’t just exploit talentless starlets. Plenty of talented actresses & actors are treated the same way.”
In Hollyweird, the difference between “talent” and “talentless” can be a quicky away. I mean, how difficult is it to act anyway?
Really, Lisa, nobody cares.