Arnold Schwarzenegger said he is “shocked and saddened” by Eliza Dushku‘s alleged sexual molestation during the filming of True Lies by stunt coordinator Joel Kramer.
Schwarzenegger made his first public comments on the allegation Monday, in response to a tweet from True Lies co-star Tom Arnold.
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“Tom, you bet your ass all of us would have done something. I’m shocked and saddened for Eliza but I am also proud of her – beyond being a great talent and an amazing woman, she is so courageous,” the Terminator actor said.
Tom, you bet your ass all of us would have done something. Iโm shocked and saddened for Eliza but I am also proud of her – beyond being a great talent and an amazing woman, she is so courageous. https://t.co/EJJbkdior2
โ Arnold (@Schwarzenegger) January 16, 2018
On Saturday, Dushku said she was sexually molested by Kramer in a Miami hotel room. She was 12 years old during the filming of True Lies.
“When I was 12-years-old, while filming True Lies, I was sexually molested by Joel Kramer, one of Hollywood’s leading stunt coordinators,” Dushku wrote on Facebook. “Ever since, I have struggled with how and when to disclose this, if ever. At the time, I shared what happened to me with my parents, two adult friends and one of my older brothers. No one seemed ready to confront this taboo subject then, nor was I.”
Dushku claimed Kramer took his clothes off and molested her.
“I remember how he laid me down on the bed, wrapped me with his gigantic writhing body, and rubbed all over me,” the Bull actress wrote. “He spoke these words: ‘You’re not going to sleep on me now sweetie, stop pretending you’re sleeping,’ as he rubbed harder and faster against my catatonic body. When he was ‘finished’, he suggested, ‘I think we should be carefulโฆ,’ [about telling anyone] he meant. I was 12, he was 36.”
Kramer later denied the allegations in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. He said it hit him “like a sledgehammer.” He called the allegations “atrocious lies.”
But others have stood by Dushku. Arnold tweeted that he “believes” her and said he was “so proud” of her decision to speak out. Director James Cameron praised her as well, and said if he knew about it, “there would have been no mercy.”
Dushku’s on-set legal guardian at the time, Sue Booth-Forbes, also corroborated Dushku’s statement.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who won a Golden Globe for True Lies, said Dushku “shared that story with me privately a few years ago.”
“I was shocked and saddened then and still am today,” Curtis wrote for the HuffPost.
On Sunday, Kramer’s agent dropped him.
Photo credit: 20th Century Fox