Charlize Theron explains why she refuses to name ‘scumbag’ director who sexually harassed her

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Charlize Theron says a male director sent her a letter trying to justify his behavior after she spoke out about the time he made a sexual advance toward her in the 1990s.

The 49-year-old actor was asked about the incident — which she first disclosed in 2019 — during Wednesday’s episode of Call Her Daddy. Host Alex Cooper specifically asked how Theron ended up at the director’s house for what she believed was an audition.

“I didn’t know what the audition process looked like,” The Old Guard actor recalled of the experience, which she previously said occurred in 1994. “I didn’t know how you went about being an actor… [my agency] said there was a casting for this movie and you’ll have to go on a Saturday night. It was this director’s house. The little voice inside me definitely said, ‘This isn’t right.’ But then, the other voice in me says, ‘Well, I don’t know. Maybe it is right.’”

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Theron said she would not be revealing the name of the director to avoid making the “story about him.”

“It’s not because I’m protecting him or anything,” she added.

‘He heard me tell the story and he knew it was about him, and he wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it,’ Theron said of the unnamed director (AFP via Getty Images)

After she went public with her story, Theron said the director “panicked” and reached out to her.

“He got nervous for a little bit. He heard me tell the story, and he knew it was about him, and he wrote me a pretend letter trying to explain his behavior and how I must have misunderstood it, which is classic, isn’t it? It’s so classic,” she continued.

“I won’t even f***ing say your name because you know you’re the scumbag. You know it’s you. If anybody ever asked me about him, I would be completely honest — and he knows that. I kind of like that he’s got to be on a hot seat. He doesn’t know when it’s going to come. I kind of like that a little more.”

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The Bombshell actor concluded: “I will not let a motherf***er f*** with me any day of the week, but when somebody catches you off guard like that… I was never going to get a part that night. I knew it as soon as I left. I wasn’t there because I had some value that I was going to bring to his movie. I was only valued for one thing.”

Theron first shared her story about the director while speaking to NPR in 2019 when she revealed “a very famous director” invited her over to his house for a movie audition. She claimed he answered the door wearing silk pajamas and “put his hand on my knee” before she excused herself and left.

“[He] offered me a drink and rubbed my knee,” she said at the time. “I was just starting out; I didn’t know the ins and outs, and said to myself as I was driving there at 9pm … ‘Maybe that’s how they do it in the movie industry?”

She added: “You don’t [know what to do] … if you haven’t experienced it, it’s a very difficult thing to wrap your head around. I wasn’t even fully convinced this was sexual harassment until later in my career.”

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Eight years later, she said, the same director offered her an acting job, and she used the invitation to confront him. She brought up the incident, but he refused to talk about it.

“[He] just moved on from the conversation, he just didn’t want to address it. At that moment, it was clear to me that it wasn’t his first time and that he had been doing this before and that other women had called him out. His way of handling it was just to talk over it and about the project.

“Unfortunately, it was not the moment I so wanted. There was no reward in it… I’ve heard this repeatedly in hearing other women’s stories, and that is the unfortunate thing about sexual harassment. You never get that moment where you feel like the tables are reversed and now he’s finally getting it.”