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JAred Leto has long been a man with a well-known problem. The public side was bad enough – when he played The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, he allegedly sent rats, dead pigs and used condoms to his co-stars – but over the years there have been disturbing rumors about his secret activities. After a long investigation, the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret has revealed some of them.
This, as you can imagine, is not a pleasant sight. The film chronicles what he says are decades of crime against teenage girls. The women interviewed here report rape, threat of rape, grooming and statutory rape. He is assisted by unidentified male associates who claim to have seen a machine Leto set up to sell middle-aged girls at concerts.
The most infuriating thing about Hollywood’s Dark Secret is that this isn’t the first time someone has tried to investigate this. By 2005, the New York Post was operating gossip columns who said he was “following hard” what was said to be “trivial things” at a hotel in New York. As of 2018, actor Dylan Sprouse and director James Gunn were marketing joke about Leto’s interest in teenage girls on the Internet. Last year, Air Mail’s Elena Clavarino spoke to nine women who variously claimed that Leto was following them around, talking to them about sex on the phone, exposing himself to them and performing naked in front of them – all while they were young.
When that report was published, Leto’s representatives denied it. It seemed that everything was going on as before. He promoted his film. He traveled with his group. For a while, the world seemed to flicker and move forward.
However, something with the history of Hollywood’s Dark Secret will be hard to ignore. Released on YouTube and the BBC to ensure maximum impact, it’s a disturbing look at the alleged skin-crawling behavior. Jessica Sartenaer and her team have put together a case that carries the mysterious smell of shoe leather. Obviously, it often takes a long time for claims like this to come to light because of the culture of silence. People are often afraid to go public for fear of embarrassment or criticism, and it’s in the best interest of most people’s finances to keep the Jared Leto machine running as long as possible.
Sartenaer was able to find four women, and ease their anxiety enough to show their faces on the screen, talking a lot. We should let their testimonials speak for themselves (this is a movie worth watching, not just reading), but their courage should be applauded.
Despite the history – these women are now in their 20s, 30s and 40s – it’s hard to watch them recount their childhood experiences. Some of their stories are straight out of the Hollywood predator playbook, and they are being bought by Leto’s team and led to dark hotel rooms. Some are even more shocking, like a woman who received lewd phone calls from Leto when she was 16, then received the same phone calls from a man who believed Leto was a good-for-nothing.
In addition, when these stories are added to concerts where Leto has his hands on teenage girls, and a scene in a speech where he brags about sleeping with fans, and another unpleasant video where he quotes an old Dazed and Confused line about high school girls – “I get old but they stay the same age” – the results are confusing.
Until now, Leto has been fighting such accusations, but you can’t help but think that this film is going to be difficult. Of course, it should be noted that the timing of the documents can help. Leto is no longer the box office hit he once was. Last year’s Tron: Ares reportedly grossed somewhere in the region of $130m, and its latest film – Masters of the Universe – is among the biggest games of the year so far. It’s not a very good sign of Hollywood that it’s going to choose to revolve around sexist characters when the point is weak, but better late than never.
Leto declined to comment on Sartenaer and his team, in contrast to the strong denials he issued after the Air Mail investigation. Maybe it’s a sign that the floodgates will finally open?
Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret is on BBC iPlayer and YouTube now
