A playwright and actress named Domenica Feraud has written a Medium essay called “The Movie Star and Me.” The essay is a long blind item about one of her first big jobs, where she was basically chief intern on a Broadway musical revival. The musical had a “movie star” in the lead, and the movie star began pursuing Domenica at work. Because of the nature of fame and because of the nature of this one f–king dude, basically everyone on the production would do anything to keep the movie star happy and working and focused, even if it meant allowing him to be quite inappropriate with a 23-year-old intern. The movie star was 35 years old at the time and throughout the story, he behaves like a moody teenager, unaware of boundaries, playing juvenile games, obsessing over his new crush or ignoring her completely. Nothing illegal or criminal happens between them. She wrote the piece to examine the relationship, how he was enabled and how the “adults” basically offered her up to him to make his life easier, to placate him and get him in a good mood. You can read the full piece here. Near the end, she made some good points:
I waited for his text, but it never came. After a month I caved, typing: I didn’t get a chance to say — the performance I saw was really something. He never responded. Weeks later I was having tea with an acquaintance when she brought up the movie star without knowing our history. Her friend was his publicist and was constantly putting out fires on his behalf. Apparently, he falls in love with these young interns and PAs on sight, pursues them obsessively, and then has some sort of freak out a month in and disappears. I felt like I was falling into an abyss, hearing about my life from someone else’s mouth. My first thought wasn’t, He’s a predator who targets women who work for him. It was, How could you be so stupid? I became sick overnight. My appetite shut down: most days I couldn’t eat until 9pm. I went to closing with my parents: when I congratulated my mentor she glanced at me coolly, seemingly forgetting I had once been a part of this. She made it clear I was not invited to the after party and as I left, I was flooded with shame.
Then Me Too happened. I read about what Dustin Hoffman said to interns and was horrified before remembering the movie star telling me he always reciprocates oral sex on day one. I reread my screenplay, verbatim quotes from the people involved stunning me: I was a commodity offered up by my mentor to make the process easier. I still haven’t confronted her because I’m terrified she’ll scoff, We both know you wanted it. And she’s right: a part of me did. But that part was never consenting. Consent became impossible the moment he commented on my appearance at work. I can never know what my true feelings were because he crossed boundaries that didn’t exist for him, boundaries I didn’t know I had to protect. I’m worried nobody will care when I share this, that people will think I’m reading too much into things. It’s hard living in the grey area that isn’t actually grey, to be the one telling yourself what happened was unacceptable when everyone acted like you’d won the lottery the moment he hit on you.
I’ve debated whether I put this out into the world because I don’t want to hurt anyone, including myself. But I don’t think I’m the only woman this actor has done this dance with. It was too well choreographed. And as much as my brain likes to tell me otherwise, I’m not an idiot for falling for it: I’m human. I was young, naïve, insecure and all those things made me the perfect target. I believed I was living a fairy tale, and society upheld that narrative. But it was a nightmare, one I’m still scarred from. And this man was enabled in his behavior at every step, which makes it hard for me to believe he’s an anomaly. And people like my mentor probably tell themselves these young women are lucky, but I’m here to vehemently disagree. Because the aftermath that never ends? It isn’t worth the fairytale.
Yeah, I like how she deals head-on with what people will throw at her: she wanted to be with him, she should have known it was all a game, she should have never developed feelings for him, etc. But again: “I can never know what my true feelings were because he crossed boundaries that didn’t exist for him, boundaries I didn’t know I had to protect.” She was 23 years old, a virgin who had never been in any kind of sexual or romantic relationship. She had no understanding of what was happening TO her, she didn’t have the experience to understand. And that’s why he did it, that’s why he targeted her, because she was young, inexperienced, naive.
And yes, I think we know all too well who this is. He really has a type: young women aged 19-24, inexperienced, sheltered. When Domenica’s friend mentioned his publicist putting out fires, I almost screamed. Wow.
Photos courtesy of Instagram.
Taylor tried to tell us.
+1
People were calling her out for writing that song about a 3~ month relationship but it seemed clear to me that it be love bombed her, got what he wanted, and more or less ghosted. That can be emotionally devastating.
Anyways, I’m curious if more people women will come forward.
Similar to when Jessica Simpson’s book came out and people went back to what Taylor wrote about John Mayer. The thing about this Movie Star is in the full context of the Taylor album there was the three month relationship with the love bomb at the beginning, but like in this Movie Star story where after the initial ghosting he still makes contact again the album indicates a story of him making contact again and again after periods of ghosting, but this time telling her they just need to keep it a secret which also then brings in the shame of continuing and hiding a relationship with someone who previously humiliated you in front of our friends and family. “You kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath. Which kind of reinforces that this was the experience she was talking about getting Clean from a couple of years later.
I just went back and listened to « all too well » it’s eerie how similar Taylor’s account is to Domenica. This guy clearly has a pattern he repeats over and over again and the women around him including his mother and sister know and enable him. Domenica didnt stand a chance. If anything this is perhaps one of the few times i find the women more abhorrent than the men, she was only 23 ! Did they forget what that was like? Even her own mother encouraged this crap. I can’t wrap my head over it. So many times at work ive made sure that the young women i know are ok whenever i see older (often married) men circling around them.
Im glad that POS is getting his comeuppance but i wont hold my breath for this to have any impact on his career, but i wont be watching
He has a pattern, and it’s pretty damn toxic. And like many toxic people, the enablers around him (everyone from the victim’s mentor and mother to the general public) blame the victims for speaking out rather than the toxic person and their behavior.
I hope more women from his past who he targeted speak up. I won’t hold my breath that he’ll face any consequences either.
And I feel a little vindicated that I never got the big deal about JG and I thought MG was the worst thing about The Dark Knight and nearly ruined it for me. I thought maybe I was being unfair about both when other people would go on about them. Nope, I just somehow realized they were sucky people in real life (joking but not entirely).
I was struck by how judgy his mother and sister seemed toward HER… But I think in that pre metoo time there was a sense that these were young women sort of professionally gold digging. I actually feel so bad now remembering how, in the early 2000s, knowing full well how awful Harvey Weinstein was toward male directors etc., yet the meme was that the young women around him were not only consenting but were somehow using him… Ugh…I also had a confusing situation at work w a powerful older guy and this story really helped me put that in perspective. She’s a v good writer. And I’m so glad these stories are coming out — it’s so important.
When this came up yesterday, I said his family is trash, but, there could be another side. They could be exhausted by his moves, so they don’t put any grace or care into the flings he keeps bringing around. Whatever the case is, I hope people are taking notes so when he makes his next jerk , move he’s met with nothing but blank stares and the back of someone’s head as they walk away.
@Sue this isn’t a direct correlation, but the mother/sister part of this story got me thinking back to this older guy I went to grad school with who was married with a family and repeatedly asked out many of the younger women in our program. Everyone turned him down and warned each other/laughed about it, but then one young woman did go on a date with him. The rest of us were awful gossips about it and kind of snubbed her, until she realized what was going on and snapped at us “I didn’t know he was married, okay??” It was years ago, but I still feel awful about it. I think it can be the inclination of women who *know* to assume that if they know, everyone knows and she should have known better.
@Tealily Your story totally resonates actually, feels similar to how I now feel about the Harvey Weinstein assumptions so many of us made then. And also — on the other side of it — the assumptions I faced at work esp from older women when a rich powerful older guy (a total player) showed me a lot of attention, put me in really awkward situations, etc. One guy warned me about him, but the older women seemed to think it was some kind of trophy. Internalized misogyny maybe? But better to see it now so we can help each other — and esp help younger women — than to have never seen it…
What I found particularly fascinating about this was the way in which the movie star was cosseted and enabled, his talent and performance are The Most Important Thing and must be protected at all costs. The allowances we give to male artists for bad behaviour, as if it’s just part of their process, is extraordinary.
I was also struck by the women around her. It’s hard to know if this is just how the writer saw it or maybe she simply had higher expectations for women, but from the movie star’s friends to his sister and his mother, and then her mentor etc… it seems like other women were doing the most to protect and enable his behaviour.
That was what struck out at me as well. I wanted to jump through the screen and strangle that mentor. She was in a role where she should have been providing guidance and trying to insulate her from his nonsense. Instead she left her out there in these awkward inappropriate moments. What was especially grating was when she then cast her aside once Domenica caught feelings.
I don’t think we should be stripping women of agency, and yes, she was an adult when this happened. But at the same time, this happened while she was surrounded by far older adults, including her own mother, who were in a position of authority, that could have stepped in and voiced concerns about what was so obviously an out of whack power dynamic and generally manipulative and exploitative work situation. Instead the mother is out here acting like the woman from that Reba song “Fancy”, the mentor is just allowing her to be exploited (knowing full well how this will end) and then seeking to justify it, and his family just…… I can’t. They clearly knew he had issues and didn’t warn her off at all.
I’ve seen his acting, he isn’t so great that people need to be doing all this isht.
THE MOTHER!!! Of everyone, the fact she didn’t offer any cautionary words or check in with her daughter to see how SHE felt about the attention makes my blood boil.
@Kate- How many parents blow up their douche canoe kids’ spot. Not many, you’d hope they would but they usually don’t. Instead of saying anything, they usually blank out the victims or treat them with disdain, why bother getting to know someone who he’s just going to pump and dump?
@MelOn I meant HER mother who was so excited about the 35 year old coming on so strong to her 23 year old daughter at her job
I agree about HIS mother – it’s unrealistic to expect his family to be the savior to everyone he is going to repeat this unhealthy cycle with
I agree with both of you. How bizarre that this guy can’t be relied upon to *do his job* unless he’s offered up a young intern or PA as a plaything during production. And the fact that the older women involved seemed aware of this (the mentor, the director, his battleax of a mother) & still treated Domenica with contempt when she thought it was some sort of relationship. He’s an emotional vampire being treated like a child who needs comforting.
This jumped out to me as well. It’s shocking no one said to him “you need to knock it off, this is a workplace and you’re going to get sued” but it seems like everyone was so afraid of losing him for the production or being fired. It all comes back to money. It’s also surprising no one said to her “be careful, he does this every time, and in a month he’ll have forgotten all about you”
Yes, someone should have said that to her but would she have listened? When you’re young and inexperienced like that you want to believe that the person really likes you. She would have said something to him and he would have told her “They’re just jealous because I picked you”. Guys like this really depend on you being young and inexperienced so they can run their full bag of trash tricks on you. I wish one of her friends had said something, or her MOTHER, that is someone she would have listened to.
Probably not, but at least she would have been making a more informed decision.
I am less critical of movie star’s mother and sister because I think their apparent disdain for her could just be disdain for his M.O. Like my husband has some friends who were perpetual bachelors and after a while I would get tired of making small talk with each new girl they would bring around, knowing they wouldn’t be there long. If they ever sensed that, they might have thought I don’t like them but it’s really that I didn’t like the whole situation. In this case, movie star was a 35 year old man – are we really expecting his mom and sister to take responsibility for his actions? Should they be having words with him every time they see he has done it again, or warning off every younger woman in his orbit? For all we know they were saying those things to him privately and he just ignored them and kept on doing it.
Yeah that was my thought too. I’ve had a few male (former) friends that were like that–every time you saw them there was a new woman and while we all got older the women were always in their early 20’s. As a woman, I want to be nice to them but at the same time I got tired of sinking emotional capital into befriending them because after a while I knew they won’t last long, and when they started being 15 years younger than me I got nothing in common to talk about.
Anyway, my take is that the Movie Star’s family members know his turnover rate over the decades and are just over any thought of making nice to someone they know won’t be around in three months. And look at it another way, if they were warm and friendly without warning her, wouldn’t we be equally angry and call them complicit in what he’s doing, basically facilitating his predation?
Yes, the expectation that his Mom and his sister are supposed to monitor or manage his dating life and warn women away from him is a bit much. It sounds to me like they just want no part of his messiness or any the situations.
I fault Mom and Sis here because their treatment of the author stinks of “show-biz dynasty entitlement” vibes. (Mom is a director, as is Dad.) Like this girl was just another gold-digging tramp out to use their precious boy and deserved to be treated like crap. Ugh.
I disagree. In as much as neither the the mom or sister have the obligation to manage his dating life, they also don’t have the right to treat these women with such disdain and rudeness, acting as though they are all gold diggers and thus don’t warrant their time.
If they have the time to put their energy into being nasty to her, they have the time and words to plainly state what their obvious issue is with the situation.
THANK YOU for covering this.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this essay. Raw, honest and incredibly brave because, like Laineygossip pointed out, it’s most likely the writer, not JG (come on, we all know who this is about) that will experience the fallout. Not only from trolling (I had the misfortune of seeing a few of the horrible comments the poor young woman has been subjected to on social media) but from an industry I’m assuming she wants to continue working in. It’s not so much my disgust towards JG that fuels my ire (let’s be honest, most of us already suspected he’s a douche canoe) – it’s the culture around him that allows him to act like this. It’s the mentors that (presumably) took on this young woman because they believed in her talent, but apparently had no issue pimping her out to keep the movie star happy (and then cast her aside – collateral damage). Even if JG started out decent, once someone like him achieves a certain level of success, it would take a remarkably strong character not to become affected by this bubble of privilege, with no-one around him pointing out that his predatory, manipulative behavior is wrong – and in fact, encouraging it under the guise of “getting the performance.” We ALL need to take some responsibility for putting this kind of “genius” on a pedestal (including me – I had tickets for this show!). This young woman, who hasn’t tried to hide her identity, has lifted the lid on something rotten, and while I’m sure there will be sympathetic noises (IF this becomes public enough and the industry thinks it’s required…) I worry she’s done herself out of future employment by telling the truth. I truly hope I’m wrong.
Rhymes with Fake Billandball.
And has a famous sister with the same last name.
who is the movie star supposed to be??
Gyllenhaal. Production was Sunday in the Park with George
It was a different play, this play was in 2019/2020.
@Zadie – I agree with Ladey Baden-Baden. Timeframe would have been 2016/2017 which matches Sunday in the Park with George. (Movie star’s age, reference to election etc.)
Domenica mentions a presidential viewing party so that’s why I think the 2020 election fits better with her time-line. JG did something called Sea Wall or Sea Call in 2019.
@Zadie, I think it’s the 2016 election. Domenica makes it sounds like longer ago that 2020.
Broadway didn’t have any musicals with big movie stars when the 2020 election and its debates were happening. It was just barely reopening.
And that play is still going on with him in it. It had a run in the West End in summer 2021 which got postponed so presumably it’s going to reopen sometime this year. He needs to be fired.
Jake Gyllenhaal
😱😱😱
Ohhh I see I got the play wrong so my time-line was wrong.
Broadway was shut down in March 2020 and all of Broadway was dark around election time that year. Professional theater in earnest, including rehearsals, didn’t start until Summer 2021.
Jake was born in December 1980, so he was 35 in 2016 – fits her story.
I want to know who the complicit female mentor was (since it’s obvious who the Dbag is) who offered up this inexperienced young woman, a virgin nonetheless. She hadn’t even had a boyfriend. Nice intro to sex. What a betrayal of trust. And then she dumped her, this young woman who’d she known since she was 19.
This. I want to know, also. Who is this woman who woukd sell out a child?
Wooooah there. She wasn’t a child. Emotionally immature and ill-equipped to deal with this relationship, sure. But let’s not act like this woman was a child. That’s not fair.
Otherwise, I think the actor preyed on this woman and everyone else let it happen because they are two consenting adults and they needed “the performance.” That’s the part that irks me the most. No one stopped him to be like…”She’s working…find a groupie in a bar.” They were all so flippant about it. But they’ve all probably had a similar experience, to be honest.
She’s not a child, she’s an adult. What she was is a naive and inexperienced adult who was an easy target for a guy who gets off on treating others like trash. The mentor should have taken her aside and told her that she’s there’s to work and she should concentrate on that and her MOTHER needs to stop watching Lifetime/ Hallmark movies and teach her daughter how to spot fools like this and protect herself.
Yeah. As someone who works with younger women in my profession, where there is 1000% still not gender equality, this just pissed me off to no end when I read it last night. She just let her hang out there like all that, then cast her aside when it turned out Domenica was an actual human being with feelings, then didn’t even take her along when the production went to Broadway. Apparently didn’t even try to reach back out and give her a pull-up even after the show was done. What a total complete and utter piece of shit.
Yes yes yes. I am a late 30s tenured professor, but when I was an early 20s grad student, I experienced multiple, older professors hitting on me. I told two mentor professors and neither had an appropriate response to my distress, although years later the male professor I told apologized to me (the man harassing me was later fired from the university due to his serial harassment).
Like the writer here, a part of me enjoyed the attention, but I also very quickly realized this was not a good situation and didn’t know how to get out of the power dynamics because of my lack of experience. BTW, I had one professor literally move my TA assignment to his class–I didn’t request his course–and I had to bow out of the TAship and lose the tuition reimbursement that comes with TAing because I couldn’t bear the harassment. I had to pay thousands.
Jeanine Tesori was the composer who produced on Sunday in the Park With George.
Well, f–k Jeanine Tesori then.
here she is with Jake
https://cloudimages.broadwayworld.com/upload12/1893337/tn-500_arrivalswm100210036173.jpg
This story is so awful. I used to adore Jake G for his talent but what a trash human and boo to Jeanine Tesori.
That woman was evil. It happened in front of her eyes, and she didn’t even give Domenica a warning or tell JG not to hit on an intern.
Jeanine Tesori was the mentor. Sarna Lapine was the director – niece of James Lapine who wrote the book for Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim.
The 35 yrs old movie star in this story doesn’t know how to talk to/engage with/relate to women in a romantic way at all. His quotes are totally cringe – if any of us was approached IRL with a male colleague who spoke and behaved this way to a fellow co-worker, we’d all agree that he was hot but sadly, bonkers. The way everyone else at work thinks this is normal is “through the looking glass” – “Emperor has no clothes” kind of weird.
He almost has to find someone with as little experience as he has in order for his behavior to seem remotely normal. Unfortunately, in his case, the women he encounters that means women who are less than 7 years out of high school. He sensed that she was a virgin – and he maybe tried to confirm it first, to make sure he wasn’t about to engage with a person that would come on to him and have it exposed that he wasn’t interested in sex at all.
Lainey has to happy to have some validation a what with his weird hatred of her and all…ha
You hit the nail on the head…. he has to find someone inexperienced and naïve.
The whole thing read to me like a slimy 19 year old boy hitting on a 15 year old girl.
Haha…nailed it with Lainey…guaranteed JG hated her because Lainey is his peer. She can go blow for blow. I’ve always been skeptical of men who date much younger women (hi, Leo!). It’s because they can’t handle a peer. They need someone less fully formed, more manipulatable. They themselves are emotionally stunted.
On another note, I remember being on the music scene about 15 years ago and being shocked by how young women were treated. I was teaching and for me, as a teacher, 15-16 year old girls are still children. They may sound like adults, but their life experience belies any claim to adulthood. But these men in these bands, men in their 20s and 30s, would talk about these girls as though the girls were fully cognizant of everything the men decided the girls wanted. The girls were screaming, so “they just want to have sex.” “They must be sl*ts” bc of how they’re dressed, etc. And I was struck by how nobody around these girls was seeing them for who they were: young, often naive women who could quickly fall in over their head. They were treated like a sort of prey, not a human being.
Did he use to have a girlfriend called Lainey?
no, Lainey (over at LaineyGossip, she’s an interviewer on the red carpet) had a bizarre interaction with him some years ago where he appeared to hate her on sight.
Oh he’s fine with peers, just not female ones. He can’t be equal with a woman, okay?!
I forgot that lainey had an issue with him. One thing i loved that she illuminated lately was that Taylor used the “wowza” in her video directed by Blake to let us know that JG is someone who says wowza. Now I realize she may have been nitpicking out of spite but I still love that tidbit
@Tanguerita, they’re referring to Lainey at Lainey Gossip because she has had some unpleasant encounters with him where he was very condescending and rude.
thank you for clearing that up for me, guys.
This was so difficult to read. What a stressful and confusing situation and she puts it all out there, lobbing her own criticisms of herself before anyone else can. I do hope that Domenica is able to continue writing and succeeding. She is very brave. I know people will say 23 isn’t that young, but come on. I was an idiot at 23 and also working on productions and you follow the lead of the more experienced people. I was not surprised by the behavior of his mother because I know people who have worked in high levels on a film of hers and she was awful to the production crew. They had never worked with anyone that abusive. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I would say that 23 IS young if you’re sb with very little sexual experience. I was also a late bloomer and sex was a mystery to me. I had no awareness of sexual dynamics in conversation, etc. She hits the nail on the head when she says that she didn’t know she was supposed to maintain those boundaries…bc she didn’t know where NOT maintaining them would lead. I can relate hard to that. I was the same at roughly her age.
Yeah, she is so clearly looking to the women around her working on the production for some guidance and receiving nothing.
Tealily—that was the most chilling part of this for me—that just about every woman here threw the author under the bus…or essentially regarded her as a peasant slut.
If she had said NO to him she would have been let go. There’s no doubt about it. What I’d like to know is who the best friend is. And his sister and mother sound like a pill too.
On another note, is it really that valuable to a production to have a ‘star’ rather than just a good actor without name recognition? If it is this type of thing won’t stop it’ll just get more covered up. And how is he a professional if he can’t work without a ‘muse’ (with or without the muses’ consent)?
Sadly yes, this is how the whole system is built on the fake belief that only a male star can carry a show and bring in BO. Take it further and no woman over 25 is thought to have BO power, even when over and over again this is disproven. Why?
Well. Almost everyone in power is male. From studio to production to on set, the men make the rules. And when a woman manages to get into one of those positions, she too often sides with the men even more fiercely as if to prove she can handle being one of them instead of trying to be something new.
Even sadder, in this production the director and whatever high up job the mentor did, both were female, and allowed, and even encouraged this to get what they wanted out of the movie star.
Another young woman would have been served up to him had she said no. The most striking part of the story to me was how utterly expendable young women are deemed to be. Thank god I never worked in the entertainment industry. As a young, inexperienced, early 20something, i would have been nothing more than meat on the hoof. No one in the 1990s would have cared about my talent. (I was up for a major internship at a film studio after college–1 of 3 finalists but I didn’t get the job. I’m grateful for that now).
Jake’s publicist is also Casey Affleck’s publicist just fyi
I don’t see her being short on work anytime soon with those two on her client list.
Publicist doing an AAMAZING job because this story is nowhere to be found in entertainment news. WTF
Wow, this was something. What a difficult situation. And NOBODY protected her at any point.
The header photo says it all. Taylor told us!
She’s a good writer, I hope she keeps writing. I’d love to read more of her work.
The mentor is Jeanine Tesori
She mentors other young women as well…😳😳😳 Watch your six, ladies!!! https://www.today.com/popculture/music/wasnt-korean-disney-princess-harvard-student-created-one-rcna13565
I think I’m missing something. He was attractive and attracted to her, he was her boss, he flirted at work, they had sex and he was warm and attentive, and then he lost interest and she was heartbroken. Isn’t that a normal sh!tty course of dating? Or am I too jaded? I don’t see the abuse here. What Am I missing?
The massive power imbalance? The fact that the majority of people involved in the play KNEW he would use her and then ghost her but nobody bothered to warn her? The fact that everyone involved in the production dumped her (to please him) when he got bored with her?
I think you are missing a lot to be honest.
They didn’t actually have sex, she was a virgin and he figured that out. He was the star of a huge play, he focused in on her, the first or second day he literally laid under her desk, when she was wearing a skirt, and told her a story about blowjobs. That was day 1 or 2. After all this went down she finds out this is a pattern, that he does this on every movie set and production he is in. Specifically to young interns.
i think the point she’s making is not that this is horrible abuse on the same level as some other awful men we talk about on here, but rather that when one person has so much more power (he had age, fame, money, and workplace seniority on his side), they have a duty to approach any potential relationship with extra care, but instead of trying to counteract the power imbalance, he used it to his advantage and treated her as lesser than him. The point is not “he’s the worst monster to ever exist”, but “this is a shitty pattern of behavior that is actually experienced by young women in all sorts of workplaces”
Yes, you’re missing quite a bit because it’s obvious you didn’t read the essay written by Domenica. Scroll back up to the highlighted words that state “read the full piece here”. When you read the essay your confusion will clear up.
He was a 36-year-old man who engaged in an emotionally manipulative dance with someone who was not only much younger and inexperienced but also the bottom rung of the power hierarchy in his place of business. He, along with everyone else who was her superior, had a duty of care that they failed to uphold. If you can’t see the inherent wrongness of that then I don’t think there’s anything else I can say to convince you.
(1) he wasn’t attracted to her – he was attracted to the idea of manipulating and hurting women, but for him to play that game and for it to work he has to target very young inexperienced women, something he apparently did all the time. (2) yes, he was functionally her superior at work, which is why he shouldn’t have been messing with her in the first place and putting her in the position where her job duties then began to entail humoring his inappropriate comments. (3) they didn’t have sex and he wasn’t warm and attentive, she was clearly hesitant about sex during the entire encounter, gave him a bj because she felt guilty for not having sex, and he immediately became cold to her as soon as it was over, while she still had detritus from said encounter in her hair. (4) He didn’t lose interest, he never had interest in a love connection in the first place, for him it was all about convincing her to do something she was unsure about and then discarding her immediately after he won his little effed up game.
@Superashes 100% this. Like how much do you suck at your job that everyone around you believes that you have to have a fixation with an intern in order to actually do the job you trained and were hired for?
Why, it is almost as if he thought he needed some kind of cover of a faux relationship so that no one on set would think that he was anything other than a horndog. The director and the mentor New that she wasn’t going to get a real love relationship out of this so they sacrificed her to cosplay his onset romance routine knowing the damage it was going to do. End of.
I agree that he wasn’t abusive, he was sleazy. I think the problem is that he was allowed to believe the workplace an acceptable place to pursue someone up for casual sex. When he realised her inexperience he backed off. He does seem as if his public profile prevents him meeting partners in normal ways
Someone in a position of power propositioning a less powerful co-worker, at work, using sexually provocative language and implied pressure, other senior people in the workplace conspiring to allow this to happen, failing to take action to stop it or sanction him in any way, her suffering negative fallout in the workplace according to his whims based on the rise and fall of his sexual interest… “wasn’t abusive” you say? You think that’s acceptable behavior in a workplace?
It it gross and sleazy and interpersonally abusive/damaging when he does it on his own time in his private life. But in this case, it was at work, he has an apparently known pattern of doing this in the workplace to women with no power in the organization, and he and the project managers, leads did nothing to prevent it. Sexual harassment and abuse in the illegal.
I honestly wouldn’t think much of this story besides the fallout where she was removed from production once the show got moved to Broadway and her “mentor” practically ghosted her as well.
She messed up (and this can happen with ANY guy, so I don’t really care that he is a movie star), but she wasn’t equipped with the emotional tools needed to navigate this relationship that most of us will go through in one way or another in high school or college.
I think the actor goes after younger girls because he is immature (as others mention), but I don’t think they are always virgins or emotionally inexperienced when it comes to these relationships. But he knows that, at that age, we would all play this “game” in the hopes of something, and he knows already that he will be crushing those hopes in some way. That’s his prize.
On top of that he gets her fired from the set and alienated from the people she considered colleagues and mentors. Personally, that’s why I despise him now.
Stories like this should be taken very seriously. This isn’t just a one-off, from the sound of it. You are talking a lot of careers destroyed by guys like this because he’s indulged in seeing young girls as meat.
She didn’t “mess up”, Jesus. He is 100% to blame for the situation and his behavior. She was trying to navigate an extremely inappropriate and anxiety-producing situation that she should have never been in. She did nothing wrong.
It’s definitely not like some of the nightmarish stuff we’ve learned about others over the past few years, thankfully. It’s consensual, but a huge power imbalance – star vs intern – and she was put into a position where if she wanted to say no, not interested, she would likely have been fired. As it was, she suffered career consequences from this.
She was there to do her job, not be his “muse” or whatever.
I agree with you. This was just a shitty dating experience. JG didn’t do anything illegal, he’s just a douche. My outrage is for everyone else who enabled and encouraged this, serving her up like a lamb to slaughter. Including her own mother – which, don’t get me started.
Thank you to those of you who took my question as a point of conversation, instead of snarky bullying. In the 80s and 90s (and 2000s and 2010s and 2020s) this kind of power imbalance and sexual flirting was very normal at work. Very. When the #metoo movement happened, my first question was “who hasn’t”? You g woman are almost always treated like this.
“In the 80s and 90s (and 2000s and 2010s and 2020s) this kind of power imbalance and sexual flirting was very normal at work. Very. When the #metoo movement happened, my first question was “who hasn’t”?”
So that makes it okay??? Everyone used to do it, so why are young people complaining now?? Is that what you’re saying??
You should be floored and amazed that young women today have the courage and strength women in the 80s and 90s apparently didn’t, because as you say, everyone just kept quiet.
Honestly, this line of thinking that just because such behavior is widespread we should all just take it lying down, shut up and get used to it is what enables such behavior to continue without any consequences.
Newsflash, everyone used to forbid women from voting or having a legal persona in the first place, we used to be just property of our fathers or husbands. But the fact everyone used to treat us like this 100 years ago didn’t make it right, did it?
Did you and Jezz miss the part where the author’s career suffered because of this? And, word to the unwise, a relationship in which one party is under duress to play the game is not a “shitty dating experience.” It’s manipulation and harassment.
@Sui: Something can be legal but not necessarily ethical.
@Jezz: it wasn’t “snarky bullying”, it was people taking the time and energy to respond to what seemed like a good-faith query as to what the problem was. But apparently you just wanted an opportunity to dismiss the toll this experience took on Feraud with “so what, this is just how it is”.
@Margaret Sadovsky – Thank you for this. Describing the responses to this query as “snarky bullying” is nonsense. There was no snark and there was no bullying.
Same, I don’t get the big deal about this. He’s definitely an sleaze ball, but not every shitty disappointing dating experience is a #metoo moment. Also, she’s 23 not 18.
Wouldn’t you like for young professional women to not have to deal with this utter bullsh*t at work? Maybe it doesn’t rise to the level of abuse, but it IS disruptive to her work and her career progression (aside from the personal aspects). IDK, I want to be the type of older woman at work who watches out for younger women and supports them in protecting their boundaries.
Maybe read the piece first? Then you’ll get what the big deal is.
It’s not her age, it’s the fact she was an inexperienced intern and he was the boss. She could have been 33, it wouldn’t have mattered. She was at the bottom of the food chain in that workplace and he was the new guy in charge who immediately after meeting her proceeded to objectify her and treat her like a doll to play with. He wasn’t even subtle about it. Commenting on her apperance right off the bat and engaging in unwanted touching, with her mentors and others at her workplace encouraging her to just accept his behavior and go along with it, that’s the problem. This piece is powerful because it shows how someone without power can be manipulated into giving away their consent without wanting to or knowing that they did it at all. When your mentor says to flirt with the new boss for the sake of everyone’s jobs, what exactly do you do? Especially if you’re new in the industry and have zero experience. And you’re told you should like it and be flattered that the new it guy with money and power over everyone’s paychecks is paying you so much attention. They tell you you should be grateful and take one for the team.
So she did what most of us would do – convice herself she should be flattered and like it, and go along with it. All the while trying to ignore that gut feeling telling her this is wrong. But then denial is a powerful thing, especially when your job depends on it.
Tell me there is no big deal in this story.
I mean, there’s the part where she wasn’t invited to join the production on Broadway, likely because of the relationship and possibly because he requested it.
If everyone was colluding with him to serve her up to him, the relationship seemed to start off under some kind of false pretense and with a degree of group manipulation. This does seem different than having a bad dating experience with someone you met elsewhere.
The power imbalance from him being an actor on set also means her career got affected in a bad way if he was able to limit the kind of work she could get.
I’m not sure what the correct term for this kind of situation is, which might not be overt sexual harassment where you can immediately recognize the weird situation for what it is, but this definitely doesn’t sound right either if all of the workers on set were in on faking her out. There is an ethical boundary being crossed by all of them if people are knowingly serving up women to him for just so he can deliver a strong performance (can’t he simply rely on his talent?). Yikes. Something definitely ain’t right there with the guy or the people around him. The fact that this is a group thing to coerce her into whatever it is he wanted makes the whole thing very weird.
Having lost job opportunities myself because some powerful sleaze got mad I wouldn’t fall in bed with them and getting nothing more than a regretful shrug from the organisations that employ them… I think you’ve very much missed the point of the article.
The irony is I had slept with any of them no doubt I’d eventually have been cast aside anyway because I’d be ‘problematic’ to their career and potentially a risk to their relationships. Women can never win, damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Hopefully this sinks in at some stage.
The way he “flirts” with her? The things he says? Can you imagine if he spoke that way to a woman his own age? He knows just how to talk to these young women. It’s classic “older perv hitting on young woman” talk. It’s gross and infantalizing.
The mentor is despicable. Despicable.
I bet Swifty feels a little vindicated. People ragged on her for writing songs about him and his messed up love bombing ways, calling her crazy because it was just a 3 month relationship, but he clearly has a pattern.
Exactly. If it is J.G. (it is) there is no way he would speak this way to a woman his age. When I was her age I was pretty inexperienced and only had one boyfriend. I cannot imagine being in the position of being pursued and seduced by a man of that stature and that age.
Of course she would be confused and excited and hurt with the way it all ended. And of course Taylor would feel all those things as well as young woman. He picked the wrong woman in Taylor in that she had a voice and was a woman of means. What a selfish, terrible man he is.
Imagine this story at another workplace. A marketing firm, middle school, clothing shop. A 35 year old man speaking like this to the new intern/admin. And her supervisor encouraging it. The behaviour would be considered preposterous, bizarre and disgusting — not normalised. He should have frickin been fired. It may not be a crime but it is not professionally acceptable.
The writer has already lost career opportunities over this. (She wasn’t brought onto the show when it changed venues and her mentor dropped her.) Of course, this “relationship” keeps replaying for her! She must be constantly reminded what it cost her.
@ocho to your point it is a crime, sexual harassment in the workplace. I don’t understand the workings of theatrical productions but it sounds like she wasn’t part of a union and had no workplace protections that should exist (at least on paper) in the other industries you name.
Right. I think that it’s easy to gloss things over because of who it is—he plays the hot, sensitive guys in movies. If it were just an average schlub, it would be easier to process how creepy and wrong this is.
Your comment is one I keep coming back to. This was a WORKPLACE. Another industry and this would be a fireable offense.
Exactly, it is workplace sexual harassment with Domenica experiencing implied quid pro quo: be this man’s fixation & you get to keep your job. I don’t blame her at all. She was the lowest power person at that workplace & everyone protected the harasser instead. Domenica was never given the chance to indulge in any attraction or chemistry because this was happening at her place of employment as an implied requirement of her continued employment. How could she ever freely date or build any potential chemistry or attraction she may have felt when the walls of silence from all the women leaders who just ignored blatant sexual harassment happening in staff meetings, at desks?
Ocho—and being known as the “girl movie star fooled” didn’t help her professional reputation. You just know folks on the set were spreading the word about her being at fault here.
The women involved who were well aware of his pattern of behavior and were complicit in the whole sorid “game ” was also disgusting and so disappointing…
There’s was a time when I was ashamed of myself for finding this movie star attractive when he was still playing teen roles (which is very unlike me) but apparently he grew into a predator with no sense of shame.🤢
As someone who doesn’t allow most people in my physical bubble, how often & how casually JG breached her bubble at work was quite disturbing. This is one way the manipulator tests how much he can push in on the personal boundaries of another. Seriously who cuddles on someone they barely know, especially at work?!? No one is allowed to touch me at work. Physical contact at work is a high five, handshake or the rare mutual hug (if I truly consider that colleague a friend) – all of these acts have a component of consent built it. Anyone should see the touchy-feely aggressively flirty behavior as inappropriate and understand what a sh***y position it puts the employee who is not in a position of power in.
Entitled, narcissistic, emotionally stunted, casually cruel manipulator ass. I’m glad he & the people that enabled his behavior have been called out.
I feel that so hard. The idea of a male coworker touching me … I value my personal space so much. Obviously more now than ever but just no. Bullying/harassing someone in their place of employment is such a violation. Why is the entertainment industry like this?
@Bettyrose probably because of all the money involved. The stars who lure in the crowds and therefore the cash, get to do whatever they want apparently.
Same for me, I am not a touchy feely person, and someone doing that in the workplace would make me instantly uncomfortable and wary. But 23 year old me, with a movie star doing that? I can totally see how she was lured in.
I liked him for a long time, but my opinion has definitely been changed.
Absolutely this. I would have been crawling out of my skin. As you say, I can’t even imagine hugging a longtime coworker without asking “can I give you a hug?” If my boss took a nap on me?? I cannot even imaging what the response in my workplace would be.
I feel you, 100%. and yes, the master manipulators are well aware of this. they are also aware that the social contract will support them, if ever a victim speaks up. it’s a vicious cesspool. Domenica is very brave to speak out. I hope she knows that so many women have her back.
My heart really goes out to this woman. Although on paper 23 is grown when I think about myself at that age I didn’t know sh*t about anything I can I completely see how easily this situation happens. Imagine your first jobs and how you always deferred to the bosses and older colleagues just in a normal works setting and now imagine that with a movie star and all these interpersonal boundaries. It’s so upsetting.
I’ve had this kind of attention directed at me repeatedly in work contexts. Even now as a woman in my late thirties, it still happens. The women these men are friends with always coddle the guy and treat him like he’s just a guy with a crush and that it’s somehow cute. The men look out for their bro.
I’ve had to learn how to navigate doing my job and protecting my own professional development while these men think of me in terms of completely inappropriate feelings that I never initiated, encouraged or reciprocated but God forbid I make them feel uncomfortable or rejected in any way.
It’s not flattering and it’s not a compliment. The guys look at me as an audience for their feelings, not as a person. I have to put in double the effort to do my job while feeling harassed and used the entire time. But it’s nothing I can take to HR, it’s just moments of warmth and friendliness that everyone can pick up as something more and then coldness or an attitude when they feel like I’m not fawning enough in response or giving them enough attention or talking more to other men in the office so I can do my job.
As a woman, your very presence is always seen through the lens of satisfying a man. If you are pretty, you are satisfying him by being pleasant to look at. In a man’s mind, that’s a compliment–he likes looking at you. He imagines that he would like being looked at and admired, so he doesn’t see the problem. But for the woman, she’s there to do a job, and to fulfil her own dreams. She’s not there to please him. So many men refuse to understand that. Our greatest desire as women is not to be pleasing to a any man whose path we cross. We’re not ornaments, and too many men still see us that way.
Goodness! Where do you work?
I hear you Alyssa, I’ve had the same. Luckily I encountered this when I was already in my 30s at work so I knew how to handle it, but still super uncomfortable and depressing that we as women still have to deal with this $hit because otherwise if we blow it up we get targeted as being unprofessional, having no sense of humor or not being a team player. Gross all around.
This essay did remind me of one college professor who would sometimes make inappropriate insulting comments to students, me including, but they were not sexual in nature, more demeaning of your intelligence or insulting anything related to feminism. However, he did realize he had crossed the line and he actually apologized, even to me, on his own, so I guess I let it slide because of that. But thinking about it now – yeah, no.
“completely inappropriate feelings that I never initiated, encouraged or reciprocated but God forbid I make them feel uncomfortable or rejected in any way.”
This article has brought up so many memories of bad experiences, and the way you phrased this resonated with me so much. It’s like you become responsible for their ego when they place this burden on you.
I’ve had similar, I’m sorry you work in an industry like that :/ Mine is an industry with predominantly men, my last bad experience was with an electrician who came to my place of work often, I said hi to him and was friendly like I am with everyone since it’s my job as management to know who’s coming and going. He took it to mean something else, somehow found out my personal cell number, and started texting me how beautiful I am and really cringey stuff. I don’t know the guy and it creeped me out. When I told him (nicely) that I wasn’t interested, he freaked and felt sorry for himself for having to come back to work and see me, like it was my fault that he’d been inappropriate to begin with. I just felt like, dude? I didn’t give you my number and would have never done so if you asked, I didn’t want your attention to begin with!! Some men are so immature with their emotions (he’s early forties)
This is what we used to call mind fck. He plays mind fck with young girls who he employs that don’t have the experience or capability of knowing what he is doing and giving it right back. This makes me look at JG completely different now, ngl. I think he’s a spoiled ass and his sister is overrated in every way so they can all kick rocks as far as I’m concerned. Good on this woman for telling the world. I hope young women will avoid him like the plague in the future.
His mother is dreadful too. She threw around snotty attitude here like an Edith Wharton dragon. 🤮🤮🤮
This made my skin crawl. This reads exactly like the beginning I had with a movie star (not the same one), but it turned really abusive. But this was the beginning. This was exactly it. And later I learned there were so many others. Is there some sort of narcissist playbook for 30 something male actors?
It’s the narcissist’s playbook. I hate to use that word because people roll their eyes and say who am I to diagnose someone else’s mental health, so removing the label, it is THE pattern with a certain type of toxic individual regardless of what career they are in.
It’s a powerful, well written essay. Adding to the chorus of admiring the bravery it took to share this publicly.
Thank you for your comment Twin Falls <3
I agree with you, but I also think it is warranted in this case. Acquired Situational Narcissism is a big thing in Hollywood, and while arm chair diagnosing isn't great, every therapist I have gone to trying to pick up the pieces from that first relationship (the very beginning was so close to this it was eery), has said that they are certain my person had NPD. It really does manifest as a pattern.
I don’t know if he’s a narcissist, but he clearly has a pattern. He started violating boundaries on day 1. Within a week, he had crouched under her desk, rested his head on her body several times, texted about missing her, talked about getting married, etc. All ways to overwhelm, flatter & confuse. When there’s a power imbalance, it’s very easy to cross over into abuse, if that is the person’s intention.
Not to mention the fact that she didn’t have the life experience to recognize what exactly was going on because she didn’t have to see it. She only knew she felt increasingly uncomfortable and anxious while everybody older acted as though she had either hit jackpot (her mother) or simply exploited the situation because it helped the production (the director and her mentor). No wonder she felt that what she felt was wrong and no wonder that she ignored her immediate instincts.
@ArtHistorian Yes, that broke my heart. Her instincts were telling her something was wrong, but everyone around both of them encouraged her to override them & them blame herself.
I’m very dissappointed if it’s in fact Gyllenhaal, I used to be a big fan.
I also wonder where are all those people who even on this website were 100% sure, claiming to have insider industry knowledge that he was gay and not at all interested in women? Now we are hearing that he actually prays on young women. It makes me even more certain not to believe blind items. Here we have an author making claims under her own name and no reason not to believe her, but blind items can be a load of BS and most of them probably are.
Both could be true. Gay men haven’t always treated women very well, either, and are just as likely to treat women as ornaments as straight men.
he could still very well be gay because as someone said above he wasn’t attracted to her, it’s all about the manipulation and the power dynamics.
The entire system failed this woman. The entire production centred on keeping Jake happy via his ability to love bomb this girl. He was able to say and do things NO One in this day and age would be allowed and encouraged to do in a normal office setting. This entire workplace scenario was why people like Weinstein ran free for so long: what’s the cost of trauma to a young girl? the show must go on!
Her own mentor, her own mother, and all her friends fanned the flames despite the age gap and obvious power imbalance and inappropriateness. His sister was repulsed at her brother but couldn’t stop him and took it out on her, and his mother with the sexy screensaver clearly had boundary issues.
Geez Louise. The layers!!!
Seriously, if he needed all this just to do his job…perhaps he wasn’t right for it? 🙄🙄🤮
All I can say after reading the essay is that I am so proud of Dominica and younger women who are speaking up. When I was her age and dodging sketchy guys trying to talk me into the sack, I would have never called him out. Calling someone out for bad behavior was never done back then. Plus no one would believe you anyway. So keep it up ladies!!! It’s going to take LOTS more calling people out on their BS, but it feels good that it’s finally happening.
This.
What a raw, honest, sensitive essay. I feel for her so much. It’s one of the best examples I saw of why a skewed power dynamic – at work no less – is a huge problem, even when we talk about two – on paper – “consenting adults”. I’m also astonished what a soulless, heartless, gloomy world she describes – everybody knows what is going on, but they let her be the prey of a stone-cold narcissist and discard her after. It’s like most of them lost their humanity – if they ever had it – in the name of their “great project”. Domenica, you are heard, understood, believed and supported.
I think the mentor is Jeanine Tesori, composers and producer.
He’s a creep. It seems to be a pattern with him. She was preyed on because of her inexperience, vulnerability and how young she looked.
This is picture of the writer from the time she was working on the production:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BFK-QW9sxRg/
And here with JG on the subway (in case people are doubting her):
https://www.instagram.com/p/BLye3_gg0bc/
I wish her nothing but success in the future. It must have been difficult to write all this out.
amazing deep dive links thank you – and she looks so young in 2016…much younger than 23.
Aaaaah!! Thank you Madrigal for linking and the deep dive!! When I saw this post I went to her Instagram and was instantly struck by how young she looks NOW. She looked like a teenager back in 2016!! That pic of them on the subway!? She had braids in her hair and that made her look even younger! This isn’t a critic or an insult in any way but you can just tell by looking at her that she’s not in the industry game. She wasn’t an Instagram model/influencer who put herself out there. He saw this insecure undone very young naive person and really thought, she’s perfect to just do whatever and pressure. Gross.
Sexual harassment at work is a crime, right?? If he had just stuck to doing this outside of the office then he would be a regular creep like Leo D but I would even say that the women he chooses know the game and stakes.
Oh wow! Ugh, that subway photo.
OMG wow! This basically confirms it 100%. And she looks 15 in these photos, WTF is wrong with him?! OMG I’m horrified now. That he would hit on a girl who looked this young. Jesus.
But then I remembered he’s now dating someone even younger than her!!! OMG the irony. Jeez, if I was his current gf I would run like crazy.
She looks like a 12yr old in the pictures. He’s got issues….
HOLY CANNOLI, BATMAN! She is so young looking. I’m so appalled by this.
Why was production so keen on keeping him or making him happy? What do they get out of this?
Money. Ticket sales. A lot of people buy tickets if a famous actor is in a play. I actually had tickets for this and something happened and I couldn’t go.
I don’t know much about the theater or Broadway but from what was written, keeping the actor happy was a big goal to making the production run smoothly and getting a good performance from him and those good reviews and greater prestige for all involved. So coddling and keeping him sweet was the MO of those in charge, and DF a was a tool for that. I wonder if when the production moved to Broadway and the mentor jettisoned DF, there was another young/even younger looking woman to be his bait.
In the essay, the mother of the actor breaks down in tears and thanks the mentor for what the mentor had done for her son (the mother is also extremely rude to DF later on). The vibe is not 35 year old seasoned actor but moody brat who must be appeased.
“Whatever’s good for the project” has been a horrible tradition in show-biz forever.
Sooooo I guess Jake wasn’t Toothy Tile after all?
Whaaaaat?? What about the super secret baaaaaby??
I remember those posts!
It could totally still mean he’s Toothy Tile.
Or it could mean that Toothy Tile helped him hide from predatory behavior because it would make people doubt the women.
So horrible. That he, her mentor, her whole work network and people she would have considered colleagues just completely ghosted her (on his instruction? becuase of his whims?) after he’d had that first completed sexual contact with her is just ugh. They (JG, the mentor, the colleagues, his friends, his family, etc. – not Domenica, who was used horribly imo) all need to take a good look at themselves. They sound awful.
I was a 21 year old virgin who had never had a boyfriend, had low self esteem, had just graduated from college and had my first temp job that I was hoping would go permanent. Entirely different industry. I had something very similar happen to me with an older, attractive guy in my office. I’m in my mid 50s now-and reading this essay brought back exactly how I was feeling during that time period.
It’s a super valuable essay that I think a lot of women can probably relate to. Even if this experience is happening to you at 16 or at 19, when a girl is sexually/romantically/life inexperienced it’s just so easy to get caught up in how someone else feels about you and to tie your worth into how they treat you and whether you can keep them happy and liking you. I just wish this story and others like it could reach the hearts of other young girls before they have to go through it.
It’s a story about workplace harassment, since he was technically her boss, right? I can see how she didn’t feel she had a chance to say no to him, to assert boundaries, even when he asked – she would have been fired from the set.
And she ended up being fired anyway.
And who would she have reported this to, as people just waive his behavior off as that’s what movie stars do? Just. Yuck.
Taylor Swift could have done a real hatchet job on this guy if he seduced her like he apparently did with this writer. Re reading her song lyrics, she actually was quite restrained and was hoping we would read between the lines. Well, here we are.
I think the reason is, she wrote All Too Well (even the 10 min version) in the wake of the breakup. When she still thought it had been love, his words had been romantic, and was heartbroken and confused (like the author thought or questioned for a long while).
If she wrote about him today, it might be quite different!
I was fighting back tears as I read Domenica’s story, because I have been her. In my case, I was 17 and he was 30. I’d attended an all-girls school from K-12, and I was painfully shy to begin with, so I was really clueless even when it came to guys my own age, much less older men. He lovebombed me, talked about how admired my intelligence, and made me feel sophisticated, even if the sexual remarks ere awkward. Unfortunately, I was stupid enough to go all the way with him, and I believed it actually meant something. This went on for 2 years. When he broke it off with me, it really destroyed me for a while. I felt used. I felt like an idiot for falling for it, especially when I eventually learned that I was not the only student he’d been inappropriate with. There were women who could’ve warned me, but none of them did, and a few basically regarded me as a slut. I rarely ever talk about all this, because I still feel stupid and guilty, and a lot of people with whom I’ve shared my story tell me I was old enough to know better.
So I really feel for Domenica, and I’m so glad that she found the strength to speak out about this (Taylor, too!). It hurts to talk about it, but in doing so, she might be helping other young women who don’t recognize the warning signs, as someone ought to have done for her.
I am so sorry this happened to you. You were only 17 much too young IMO to “know better” especially that it was a 30 year old ??!! You did nothing wrong xo
Thank you, it really des help to have others affirm that it wasn’t my fault.
Wow people are d*cks if they think a 17 year old should “know better”. At that age you have had an adult body for like 3 seconds and a child’s brain for 17 years and exactly zero life experience identifying when you are being manipulated and used.
Right? I graduated high school at 16, and if I can brag on myself for a moment, I am a pretty smart person, so I guess they thought that would translate to emotional intelligence as well. In reality, I sometimes think my intelligence might have actually hindered my emotional growth, to a certain extent.
I’m sorry this happened to you and I am royaly pissed at all those supposed adults who behaved like cowards, placed the blame on you, covered their asses and thought about their jobs instead of your value as a human being.
I hope you have been able to move on and I wish you all the best in life.
Thank you. I have worked past it, for the most part, and now have an amazing fiancé whose appreciation of me is genuine and who finds subtle ways to remind me of that on a daily basis. And I also got a smart, thoughtful stepdaughter as a bonus!
As for the women who could’ve said or done something, I know at least one of them (who was among those who thought I was just a slut) got caught up in that university admissions scandal that Aunt Becky was involved with, and she was fired. Even though her (in)actions towards me didn’t factor into it, it still felt like a small victory.
You’re not alone. I had a teacher I met in middle school fresh out of college as a substitute then become my high school english teacher freshman year. He then started building a relationship with me that culminated with him singing me happy birthday on my 18th birthday with his dad band. Yeah, he was married to the school district advisory psychiatrist & after 4 years passed, he had a kid with her too. The flattery, the love bombing, and how he would follow me & knew where to find me with my friends where he would insert himself didn’t feel creepy until it did, when he was singing to me.
I only saw him one other time after I had left my hometown by chance in the grocery store. He had a cart full of kids snacks and was trying really hard to get my number. I was with my best friend & she pointed out to me later how desperate he was. I just got bad vibes.
It is one of the only times I listened to my creep intuition so he didn’t get my number & he got nothing from me turning 18.
@souperkay I also had a younger male teacher in high school try to start grooming me when I was 16-17. He would walk with me in the halls between classes, drop by my other classes to kneel down by my desk just to talk to me, and when I was in his class he would say things to my classmates like ‘doesn’t NB look really nice today? That is a great sweater’ and embarrass me.
Since I went to a very small high school it got to the point where everyone noticed and my classmates would tease me about my ‘boyfriend’. I didn’t really know how to deflect the attention. Luckily, I had a female teacher who was a bit of a mentor to me and I was pretty close with her. She noticed what was going on and after the second time he came into her classroom specifically just to talk to me she kicked him out. After class she asked if I was uncomfortable and I told her yes. She must have had a talk with him because he left me alone after that and I have always been thankful for her noticing and stopping what he was trying to do.
Hugs to you Miranda & all you posters. I see you and feel your pain. When you’ve lived with a a shame that you were too young to be held responsible or to actually be held responsible for, is really a shame others should carry. The fact that others (after you were denigrated) came out, is minimal comfort. I will always appreciate those who warned you ahead of time and didn’t disparage you when you made a mistake or were fooled. I have a lot to say about this subject. Like you Miranda, except longer, I’ve been married to someone who heard my uglies before marriage. He told me he observes more then he let’s on, has seen men behaving badly and decent people dragged through the mud. It led to the discussion of I’m smarter than you think. After decades of being together, we still have the ‘smarter than you think’ debates. Usually involving gardening & sports.
My heart goes out to Domenica. Very brave & cool she put all of this out there. LOL, at the Toothy Tile days. Back then, on Ted C.’s Awful Truth. Angelina was supposed to be Fake ala Ferocity. lol How do you make a blind item about someone that’s been upfront about things? Digressing further, I believe Ted. C (wish it would happen to RR;s), was threatened with lawsuits. He also had to leave with the Ryan Seacrest & Charlie Sheen stories.
Jake G. is a bit of a shit.I haven’t forgotten that Jake G. & his sister are close with Mario Battali(sp?).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHOImyBOY8E
One of the worst things is that all these people just sat there and watched it happen, knowing he’s done this in the past and that it’s going to hurt her career wise later. And no one stopped it or even gave her a heads up.
Outch, to think I was a fan of him… Argh gross. And just learned Dustin Hoffman sexual harassed his assistant… well what a day.
Poor women
Omg i think she’s the bravest person and is such a great writer. Good on her for blowing this up. People can be jerks and need to be held accountable, even if it isn’t criminal behavior.
Man I was an intern 15 years ago and back then when I had this kind of nasty treatment from a “respected” elder colleague (totally different industry) two of my superiors noticed almost immediately and jumped in to check on me and block him. They continued the project with the gross dude (he was a contractor) but I was always alerted beforehand, protected from interacting with him, and then when the project was over I never heard of them working with him again. I felt very protected. Her mentor should have known better. Terrible.
I recall being just as sheltered, naive and clueless at 23. My first kiss was 22. So I very much was just an adult on paper and had no idea how to handle this treatment either. Glad I had protection
I found it alarming how shabbily his mother and sister treated this young woman. Why would you treat a young woman in such a way? For them to be so callous is insight to how spoiled he is by them. What a gross family.
How do you think he got that way? Assholes are made not born 😉
Her essay was a really difficult read. It flashed me back to many uncomfortable I hadnt thought about for a while, from my own late teens and early twenties.
I hope she gets a movie deal. I’m really annoyed with the behaviour of the sister and mother. Yuck. I hope I wouldn’t act like that if I were in a similar situation.
Yes I too didn’t understand how his mom and sister were so hostile – totally misplaced anger I guess easier for them to be annoyed at a young person they see as a “climber” rather than looking clear-eyed at their golden boy for being creepy and taking him to task
This was so painful to read, the more so because I think we already know who will and won’t pay a price professionally.
I’m going to bet that his sister ends up fielding more questions about his behaviour than the actor himself.
There was so much that was horrendous about this story. The disregard for the personal boundaries of Domenico, that her superiors purposely overlooked the inappropriate behavior for the sake of getting ba “good” performance, all of it. So disgusting. So wrong.
That being said the part that really sticks out to me was how he’d lay his head in her lap and take a nap. It evokes the image of a child napping in a parent’s lap in a doctor’s office or something. This is the behavior of a child. How can any adult look at themselves in the mirror and not feel ashamed? And in a workplace of all environments! And to do this to a young and inexperienced person who’s most likely working on their first big gig.
The entitlement and privilege is unreal. I can’t believe so many would enable this behavior for the sake of an acting performance. Were there no other well-known actors available who could not only give the play name recognition but also deliver a great performance while being a respectful coworker?
The napping struck me as really odd also. There is a line in her essay something like “when it was time for his nap that afternoon….” as though this was something he did every day. He had a “nap time” like a toddler.
@Watson Part of the system is the mindless adoring fans. Someone can’t be famous without a following. Propping people up on a pedestal simply because they are pretty, rich and famous lets them get away with shit like this. And it’s not just the inner circle doing this.
He is awful and sounds like a horrible narcissist so this won’t slow him down at all. He won’t face any consequences but hopefully young women in the future will at least be aware of this pattern (between this and Taylor’s warning, hopefully the message will come through). And yea, the people around her – her mentor, her mom – these are the people that I’m hoping realize their roles in enabling this toxic situation. I think it’s also a good lesson for most of us, who probably would push our friends to do something like this with a movie star, even in the face of these red flags, because we’re all way too excited about being close to a movie star (and I include myself in this-before reading this I probably would have been the girlfriend pushing her towards him).
Thank you for sharing the story! Wow did I learn a lot. I hope this blows up big time and he has some $hit to pay.
I find it so interesting how many here are taking Domenica’s story seriously, especially after Taylor’s story was so similar. Yet I remember clearly how many of us here blamed, shamed and ridiculed Taylor for being a drama queen and too sensitive. It’s all still on that thread.
This story when compared to Taylor’s story confirms that he has a pattern, That it wasn’t just a young Taylor being too sensitive. The fact that the writer also mentions a conversation with someone in the same industry who revealed that it is well-known that this is JG’s MO – that it is something that he does on pretty much every single production. There have also been some mentions on twitter that women who rejected him got fired immediately. It is incredibly difficult to be the first who speaks up as well as the second – but these testimonies can open the floodgates when it is about someone with a predatory pattern. It hope this’ll happen in this instance, leading to JG having to go through something.
I hear you and agree with you. I myself am one of those people who ridiculed Taylor because I admit I did not really believe her, I thought she was exaggerating in order to get out a song and make money. I ask myself now this good question you posed to see why I suddenly believe Domenica – it’s the power balance. I didn’t see any power imbalance between Jake and Taylor because she’s Taylor Swift. She is equally sucessful, famous and rich as him. She has the choice to date anyone, she’s not getting fired if she says no to him, she has power in a relationship with him. Or so I thought. But I did not see it from the perspective of Taylor being a young naive woman who maybe really honestly fell in love with him, and that’s the power imbalance I forgot about. That he knew so well to manipulate her emotions. I didn’t think of that. I suppose I think everyone is jaded, cynical and distrustful like me, lol. Anyways, I completely admit to being wrong and I am sorry about it.
Just finished reading her piece. I’m old. Well, ‘halfway’ lol. And unfortunately, her story is so f*cking familiar to me it stings and puts me right back in similar situations. I wonder. How many of us here have experienced this particular succinct brand of being led by an older someone’s leash? I think it’s monumental this was published BECAUSE there’s nothing criminal. These are heartbreaking musings from a deceived girl, a young woman who was toyed with by everyone in this particular person’s orbit. And it lays out how complicit all the players were both men and women even family members. It’s quite disgusting, and it makes me sad remembering my encounters with the much older. We must always remember. We must always endeavor to do better. And we must always respect and look out for each other.
I think that most women can recognize that feeling of ignoring our immediate instincts when we were young – because of the lack of life experience and because we are trained to ignore instincts and be “good girls”.
This just lit on fire everything that All Too Well left unscorched.
But more than his toxicity, was the toxicity of everyone who worships at the alter of his Fame.
Tragic and infuriating.
The mother is awful, too. Fun fact, Naomi Gyllanhaal has an MA in Developmental Psychology, yet raised an emotionally stunted predator.
“Emotionally stunted” is all I kept thinking, too. He doesn’t know how to engage in an appropriate way. His behavior was like a middle schooler with a crush but he also wielded power in a sick way. It’s pathological and my heart goes out to his victims.
blaming the mother is so 1900s. seems like he is a born sociopath.
Nah. Mom was leaning in hard. Plus him talking about blowjobs in front of his sister… probably a lot of inappropriateness and modeling of bad boundaries in the family.
Also: She mentions he wore the same tee shirt three days running—confirming he’s a non-bathing stank ass.
That jumped out at me, too.
Also, RIP to me ever paying for a JG performance ever again. I need to make a list of the nice guys in Hollywood that I will pay to see. It probably won’t take that long…
This actor, JG, he’s been in the business since a child? Is there anyone else thinking he might have been abused himself as a child? His behavior sounds like he is emotionally unable to form a normal, adult relationship. And because it’s the way of the industry, no one dares to stop him. I don’t think this would happen in a “normal” office, at least not so publicly.
Yea, she questioned whether she’d even think he was hot if everyone else didn’t say so. He sounds greasy and gross.
But really this industry just creates horrible men: James Franco, Casey Affleck, Leo and all his bros. They start out normal, dating age appropriate women but become completely entitled and emotionally stunted.
Not that that doesn’t happen to regular guys too.
When I was 24 I got a job at Sony Music in my country. I worked at the Marketing department and was excited. I didn’t have any kind of weird experience until a couple of months later, when a huge duo decided to start making music again and put together a new album. They’re huge in Europe and Latin America. We put together a listening party with select media and that’s when one part of the duo saw me, and decided he wanted me. He offered me a ride home that day and I declined – something inside me told me this was off. For the next months I had to HIDE everytime they came into the building because his managers would sit at my desk and try to convince me to go out with him, journalists would also talk to me about him and even my (female) boss tried talking me into giving him a chance. He would always corner me whenever we crossed paths for work. He was in his 40s and I was a 24 year old virgin at my first job. I was completely expendable. So I quit. I couldn’t handle the pressure. He continued chasing after me well after I was at another job and, with time, stopped.
I now look back and I’m so angry because I was never able to work in the music industry again. I literally had to give up on my dream because he, and everyone around him, tainted it. Everyone but my family were telling me to embrace this “oportunity” and there was no protection in place for me.
Cee, I am _so_ sorry. The hell with that creep. 😡😡
I’m so sorry that happened to you, talk about stalking and harassing someone, thanks for sharing your story. I think I know who you might be talking about too. UGH. He’s still with a much younger woman apparently (just googled him). Eff him, always thought he was a major creep! And super fake.
JFC that’s terrible! I wish you had had the money to sue all of their assess for sexual harrassment, but then again I know not many people have the means and time to engage in lawsuits (I know I don’t). Which makes me mad because the law is supposed to protect us all but in reality the law protects only those who can afford it. Horrible.
I hope you don’t regret it too much because if you had given in you’d have probably ended up traumatized for life, and who knows, something like that might have happened again in the future with another superfamous “artist”. So think of it as a lucky escape.
If anyone needs to see what “Movie Star” in this story was aspiring to be, can I suggest an actor that does not need hours of coddling to get into character? Here is James Dean’s wardrobe / no makeup shoot for “East of Eden”? Objectification can be beautiful with a truly talented cast.
https://youtu.be/GI1nv2mQk-s
Wasn’t James Dean the most exquisite human who ever lived?! Thank you for posting this
You know who else had this experience with JG? Jenny Lewis. She wrote about it in “Puppy and a Truck”
Is it James Franco?
No, it’s Jake Gyllenhaal.
This essay was…something. Almost every woman has a story like this, and it usually happens in one of our first professional jobs. “Movie Star” is a f*cking slimy sleaze ball who deserves to be dragged for this MO or whatever of targeting young women like this. Good on Taylor for trying to tell us. Good on Jenny Lewis for trying to tell us. (Side note – I loved him with Reese Witherspoon and was sad when they broke up, but this makes clear to me that he really was just a hot rebound for her.)
What I hope fellow women (especially those of us who are further along in our careers) take away from this essay is the importance of building relationships with younger women we work with, model appropriate professional boundaries, and MENTOR them in meaningful ways – don’t use them as scapegoats, tools to be used to further our own interests, sacrifices to get men’s attention away from us. I’m 32, and I tell all my coworkers about my salary history if our conversation goes there, I don’t answer work emails after work (which is a privilege, I recognize), and I prioritize professionalism with my superiors at work. Young people who are new to any given profession benefit from good guides. This goes for young men also. It’s not cool to flirt at work, in general, and they need to learn to take hints (gracefully). And I will say that my boundaries still get tested. Up until last year I had a male boss who needed a lot of moral support and someone to laugh at his jokes. I’m lucky he wasn’t a creep and just needy, but there were shades of emotional vampirism there also. When I left for a better opportunity, he stopped coming into the office for my last two weeks (he had been a dedicated in-office worker once the vaccine came out).
I worked with a woman who was older than me at my first grown-up gig, and when she gave me a few short sentences about the mayor of the county where we lived, I appreciated her heads-up and I listened. It doesn’t have to be a big deal to just say “Hey, he’s a little sketchy, so don’t do anything you’re not comfortable with.”
His mom and sis did what they could. They have their own lives and the good thing is they didn’t pretend she was his new gf. They gave her a clue, without saying something she could quote to him. It’s HIM that’s the problem, to be clear. However the employees such as the mentors… that stuff was the most surprising and disturbing to me. NOT that it’s their fault, it’s His but it seems they may be lacking integrity and at the same time I guess that if they had integrity in these situations they would be lacking a job. Seems like a quality of the industry. It probably most happens with an older man star and a female without power but I bet it happens with a variety of genders in both roles. stars get greedy and needy and use people to a hurtful degree and no one stops it, is what she was , I believe.
I don’t see how they gave her a clue (the mom and sister), they just made her feel unwelcome
He’s surely more problematic but I think there’s learning experiences to go around with the whole bunch
Well my opinion is never popular around here, but while he may be a douche, I read the entire thing and…well…white feminism really exhausts me. I don’t know how y’all do it everyday with the mental gymnastics of it all.
But I’m here for the tea though. Domenica came through. She had smoke for everyone, but herself! Get it girl.
I do remember I was pro Taylor on here years ago ONLY on one topic and that was her right to sing her songs about her experiences without getting shit for it and that he was completey inappropriate dating her, but y’all were like girl power!. And Taylor was a teenager or just barely an adult (not 23). A sheltered teenager who had parents protecting her for most of her youth but…And lot of people on here were coming for her Burger King crown shaming her.
My my, how it all seems to change.
What does “white feminism” have to do with this? Are you saying white girls who go through this aren’t as exploited as non-white girls who do?
It’s the treatment of an adult woman as a girl. She’s not a girl. She hadn’t been a girl for years, but because she looks young and was not raised to be a woman, we are supposed to feel bad that she got the loopty loop from a famous actor. I feel bad for her. I am disgusted at the way those around her didn’t clue her in and spell out the consequences. But this isn’t a surprising story. It isn’t a new story. And she has come out of it relatively unscathed comparatively. I think even the author would admit to this.
I would just appreciate you not referring to her as a girl. Because society never affords the same innocence and immaturity to minority women. We are forced to grow up much faster and living in this coddled way just isn’t possible.
@Lemons
How is she not a girl? She was an innocent naive virgin with no dating or life experience. That’s a girl. It makes no difference the number of years you assign to her. Do you really think that what makes a woman a woman or a girl a girl is a mathematical number? You think if you just sit there long enough you’ll suddenly become an adult or a grandma just because enough time has passed?
How naive and simplistic are you?
Her writing itself shows just how young and childlike she was in her brain, and her thinking and emotional maturity were akin to a middle schooler. I’m not calling her stupid at all, just sheltered and young. In fact I think that’s a good thing, I like that she was like that at 23, unlike what most college girls are like these days. Sadly for her that a-hole saw immediately how innocent she was, he saw that she was actually a GIRL and he zoomed in immediately to eat her up. Because an experienced 23-year old woman would have seen right through it immediately and would have known how to play the game and use him right back to her advantage. None of which this young innocent GIRL knew how to do.
So yes, I will shout from the rooftops that she was a GIRL whose innocene society is supposed to PROTECT not exploit or shrug their shoulders at like you do, saying girls can’t afford to stay girls. If we come together and point out how terribly wrong it is girls can’t afford to stay girls for long then we might protect some girls from becoming targets of abuse and exploitation. Your kind of response just enables abusers and puts the blame on the victim by basically saying she should have known better. It’s the same as saying someone got raped because they didn’t wear enough clothes and women cannot afford to go around exposing body parts in this society otherwise they might get raped and well it’s their fault for not covering up.
It’s always the rapist’s fault no matter what you are wearing and it’s always the abuser’s fault no matter how old or naive you are.
@Lemons and Vita; Domenica Feraud is a woman of colour, of Ecuadorian descent I believe. She discusses it in the publicity for her play.
This was her workplace. On day one at her workplace, JG hid under her desk to look up her skirt. Her mentor & the director paired them together without ever asking Domenica if she was okay with it. They did not support her or protect her from unwanted touch in the workplace & set up an implied quid pro quo sexual harassment situation, where Domenica got kudos for letting JG sexually harass her. Her mentor specifically knew Domenica was at the very least confused about her role on Domenica’s first theater job without ever addressing it, speaking directly, or offering her any protection. When the play moved to Broadway & JG was done with Domenica, the director & mentor chose JG.
Domenica was not the problem in this story, JG was, using his workplace to predate on a young, inexperienced woman, violating her safety, her physical boundaries, and abusing his power as number one on the call sheet to force Domenica to do what he wanted.
I am a newcomer to this site so can’t speak to the past celebitchy commenters…but I always supported Taylor and thought he was suspect.
Also Domenica spoke at several Intervals about her own choices and being self critical.
I fail to see how it is a hallmark of white feminism to support a young woman who was being sexually harassed. Many victims are far from “perfect”. This is a take I would hope intersectional feminists would be ready to rally around. Maybe I misunderstand your point? I feel a lot of people are waking up post me too.
To vitavita above. I didn’t need to do any mental gymnastics to recognise my own experiences within the essay. She was very self reflective and clearly had run every possible scenario of what she could have done differently. I’m not sure what “smoke for everyone but herself means” but if you mean she threw everyone else under the bus and made herself seem blameless, that’s not the way it came across to me.
You’re right that white feminism is exhausting, but I’m not seeing how that is relevant here. I relate to the universal ick of her experience as a young woman.
Let’s be clear, a pattern of dating sexually inexperienced women, leading them on, and then ghosting them as soon as they “give it up” cannot be written off as “a bad dating experience.” It’s extremely predatory and gross.
A “bad dating experience” is when he spends the entire night talking with his mouth full or repeatedly mentioning his ex, it’s not being sexually preyed upon because of you are too innocent and naive to know better.
Anyone else shocked by that instagram photo of her? She’s very beautiful but she looks WAY younger than 18. Today. Six years after the events of this story. Yikes. What a creep.
There’s a picture of JG and the writer at subway and during the time my god she looks like a teenager! It is so fucking creepy and he needs jailtime
She was a 23-year-old virgin and shouldn’t be targeted.
The actor shouldn’t flirt with her, or approach her in anyways.
This is WRONG on so many levels and JG should swallow all this crap now for what he had done.
He approached this young woman with agenda and then ghosted her.
This is heartbroken saying this, I liked JG a lot and felt I want to defend him in every way.
But this actor’s behaviour was so shitty and it really traumatized those young women who were inexperienced and sheltered for their life.
I blamed the mentor, the whole team, and JG for this happening.
This woman was just trying to pursue her dream in this internship and it was destroyed.
JG needs to own it up and pay for his action.
And thank you for telling this story, TS’s lyrics wasn’t all drama. It was real, those men need to stop their creepy behaviour, don’t matter how handsome or wealthy or loving you are.
Just stop preying on those vulnerable women! They don’t deserve any of your shit.
I wrote an article letter to JG. Face it , dude.
https://meix831.medium.com/jake-gyllenhaal-should-apologize-to-miss-feraud-b6af38e1dcba
She was a 23 year old college graduate, capable of critical thinking and sound judgment. Her employer and mentor encouraged her to schmooze the client that seemed to like her. Her coworkers were put off when they found out that she had developed an intimacy with the movie star. Movie star took it too far but admittedly asked for consent at every step of the way and stopped when she told him she wasn’t ready to have s*x. Movie star changed his mind about seeing her. Both had right to change their mind. Both were unprofessional in a professional setting. I fully expect people to attack me on this one, but whatever. All this article tells me is that JG is a creep and very unprofessional.
Yeah, you deserve to get dragged. A 35 yr old movie star with all that fame, money and power in the world set out to sexual harass a young intern. The intern is made to understand her job is to go along with it. He unceremoniously drops her. He is the abuser. Consent is not “well she didn’t scream no”. To get consent, you must truly look at a potential interaction and judge whether the other party can truly give enthusiastic and equitable consent. A 25 yr old grad student may consent but as a 40 yr old professor, I know that any relationship would be inherently unequal and therefore there cannot be equitable and enthusiastic and fully informed consent.
Sad that even women can’t see how wildly inappropriate his actions were. He is as talking to her like they were best friends after knowing her all of a few hours — that’s not normal, my god. GTFOH.
All this. Also, even if their ages had been closer and she hadn’t been an intern—a co-worker being TMI about their sex life and grabbing you tightly from behind without so much as a by-your-leave? Definitely qualifies as sexual harassment.
Yawn. You added nothing except to characterize lying under an intern’s desk and talking about oral sex as {schmoozing}.