A Canadian actress and model is accusing actor Timothy Hutton of raping her in 1983, when she was 14 years old. Sera Johnston claims Hutton sexually assaulted her in a hotel room in Vancouver, where the Oscar-winning actor was filming the movie Iceman. Hutton, who recently starred in Netflix’s horror series The Haunting of Hill House, has denied the allegations.
In an interview with BuzzFeed News, published Monday, Johnston said she was an actress at the time, and was given an opportunity to meet Hutton and one of his friends at a hotel room. Both men were in their twenties at the time, and she did not think of why they would want to see girls her age. She thought they were “entertaining them,” but the encounter took a dark turn, she claims.
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“He was getting very close to me, like, you know, really kind of sidling up to me, and petting my legs and stuff,” Johnston told BuzzFeed. “I was just, like: I think this is going to be bad. I was really wrong about this.”
Johnston said she could not remember how she was led to the Ordinary People actor’s bedroom, but did remember he asked her if she had had sex. At this point, Hutton’s friend came in the room. She repeatedly told them she did not think this was a good idea and she wanted to leave. They told her “It’ll be OK” in response. Hutton then began kissing her neck.
Johnston said the two men started taking her clothes off “like a doll” and in an “almost ritualistic way.” She recalled laying on the bed “very rigid” and felt “really cold.”
Hutton also took his clothes off and got on top of her, she claimed. “Please, don’t do this. I can’t do it. I can’t,” she remembered telling him, while his friend watched.
“It hurt like hell,” Johnston recalled. “I mean, it was very painful. God. Yeah, it was extremely painful. Horrible, horrible, absolutely horrible.”
She also claims Hutton’s friend put his erect penis in her mouth “a couple of times,” even as she told him not to. She was wearing braces with rubber bands at the time, and began crying.
Hutton told his friend “‘She doesn’t like that,’ or whatever,” she claimed. “Meanwhile, he finished raping me.”
Hutton “completely and unequivocally denies” Johnston’s allegations in a statement to BuzzFeed News. The actor claims he never met Johnson and “will not spend one more minute dignifying these allegations as they are patently false and designed only to extort money from him.”
Johnston “provided salacious, heinous, and graphic details of this made-up sexual encounter that supposedly occurred 36 years ago,” his statement continued, adding there is no evidence to support her claims. His attorney called her allegations “fabricated” and include “patently false, scurrilous, and defamatory statements.”
Hutton hired three spokespeople and two law firms in response to the allegations. His representatives gave BuzzFeed News a 91-page letter they refused to let be published in full. In the letter, they allege Johnson did not come forward with the story until 2017, and went to a lawyer first to get a financial settlement before eventually going to police. They also claim an ex-boyfriend of Johnston’s reached out to the man she claims assaulted her with Hutton to reach a deal.
Johnston told BuzzFeed she did agree to a $135,000 settlement with Hutton, far less than the $1.5 million her attorney asked for. But she did not sign the deal, as the terms included Hutton denying her allegations were true. Hutton’s rep believes Johnston refused to sign it because she was not getting the money she hoped for.
One woman did corroborate Johnston’s story about joining to Hutton’s hotel room. BuzzFeed also spoke with people Johnston told her story to over the years.
Johnston eventually filed a criminal complaint with the Vancouver Police Department in November 2019 against Hutton. Her current attorney, Neil Chantler, told BuzzFeed she is in “regular contact” with a detective on the case.
Elsewhere in her BuzzFeed interview, Johnston recalled how the alleged rape changed her life. She went on to be an exotic dancer and model, and was involved in toxic relationships. She was married and divorced twice. She also stopped pursuing acting.
“That was my own punishment to myself for getting raped,” she told BuzzFeed. “Especially because of who raped me.”
Photo credit: FOX via Getty Images
