Jamie Lee Curtis On Eliza Dushku’s True Lies Sexual Assault Claims: ‘It’s a Horrific New Reality’

Jamie Lee Curtis has written an op-ed discussing her thoughts on Eliza Dushku’s sexual assault allegations against True Lies’ stunt coordinator. In the piece on Huff Post, Curtis says that Dushku told her a few years ago in private about the alleged sexual assault at the hands of Joel Kramer when she was twelve. “I was shocked and saddened then and still am today.”

Curtis notes, “Eliza’s story has now awakened us from our denial slumber to a new, horrific reality. The abuse of children.” She said that having served in the role of mother characters to many Hollywood stars, she knows that “It is a complicated relationship working with children as they are being asked to do adult work with you in an adult field, surrounded by hundreds of adults who want them to perform for them, and yet are still inherently children. I have wrestled with my role as a mentor, colleague, surrogate, and friend, and each relationship is individual and unique. Are we really friends? Are we work mates? Children are not mature enough to recognize that subtle difference.”

She pointed out that rules regarding the safety of children is “often broken,” such as having teachers and adult family members or surrogates on-set at all times and rules that need to be followed. Curtis added, “What compounds the difficulty here is that the stunt coordinator in question was literally in charge of our lives, our safety. Stunts always require an enormous amount of trust and on that movie in particular we all were often suspended by wires and harnesses, very high in the air.”

“All of us must take some responsibility that the loose and relaxed camaraderie that we share with our young performers has carried with it a misguided assumption that they are adults in an adult world, capable of making adult choices,” she said. “Many of us involved in True Lies were parents. Jim, Arnold and myself. Parents of daughters. What allegedly happened to Eliza, away from the safety net of all of us and our purview is a terrible, terrible thing to learn about and have to reconcile.”

Curtis joins True Lies director James Cameron in discussing Dushku’s allegations. Cameron said at the TCA winter press tour, “Eliza is very brave for speaking up. I think all the women are that are speaking up and calling for a reckoning now (are brave).” He noted he was unaware of the incident and added, “Had I known about it, there would have been no mercy. I have three daughters. There’d really be no mercy now.”