The director of a new documentary into sexual misconduct allegations against Jared Leto has said it is a “mystery” that the claims have not impacted his career.
Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, which is available on BBC iPlayer now, features allegations from 10 women relating to alleged encounters with the Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds To Mars frontman between 2002 and 2016.
Four of the women have accused Leto of criminal sexual conduct when they were teenagers, including sexual assault, statutory rape and grooming. He has denied the allegations, stating: “I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
The documentary’s director Alice McShane has now spoken to Variety about the film, questioning why previous allegations against Leto have appeared to have little effect on his career.
Last June, nine women accused the actor of sexual misconduct in an Air Mail investigation. His representatives “expressly denied” the claims at the time and described them as “demonstrably false”.
McShane said her team had already begun working on the documentary when that article was published, but were surprised by the response to it.
“It was just really surprising when not a huge amount seemed to happen after that article went live,” she said.
Since the Air Mail report, Leto has appeared in two major films, Tron: Ares and Masters Of The Universe.
Asked why the allegations had seemingly had little impact on his career, McShane replied: “It’s quite a mystery, isn’t it?”
“It just feels like the outrage about stories like this has slightly cooled,” she added, pointing to the rise of the ‘manosphere’. “In a way, these sorts of stories have been normalised in people’s minds, and I just don’t think that they get the traction perhaps that they would have done 10 years ago.”
“He’s cultivated this persona of this kind of weird, enigmatic, mysterious guy, and I think, in a way, that sort of shielded him from accountability,” she said, adding that she believed there was also an element of “pretty privilege”.
McShane, who also directed Russell Brand: In Plain Sight in 2023, said Leto and his representatives did not respond directly to a right-of-reply letter sent by her team earlier this month.
One woman featured in the documentary alleged that Leto sexually assaulted her in a motel bathroom when she was 17. Another accused him of having sex with her in California when she was 17, which would be classified as statutory rape under state law.
A third woman alleged that he threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19, while another claimed that he groomed her and made repeated sexually explicit phone calls when she was 16.
The BBC said it has corroborated a number of the accounts with friends and family members who were told about the alleged encounters at the time, as well as examining messages and photographs.
For more help, advice or more information regarding sexual harassment, assault and rape in the UK, visit the Rape Crisis charity website. In the US, visit RAINN.
