In an October 18th interview Rolling Stone’s Hillel Aron conducted with James Toback just days before a Los Angeles Times expose would highlight decades of alleged sexual assault by the director, Toback vehemently denied making unwanted advances against any women.
Aron contacted some of Toback’s alleged victims — all of whom said that the director invited them to his hotel room for an audition or to discuss a role only to be sexually assaulted — and when the director was asked about the allegations, Toback did not take the high road. “I don’t want to get a pat on the back, but I’ve struggled seriously to make movies with very little money, that I write, that I direct, that mean my life to me. The idea that I would offer a part to anyone for any other reason than that he or she was gonna be the best of anyone I could find is so disgusting to me. And anyone who says it is a lying cocksucker or cunt or both. Can I be any clearer than that?”
The embattled director then griped how his alleged victims were supporting each other and “ganging up” against him. “They hear each other. And they gang up. … It’s all, you know, me too, me too, me too, me too, me too. … It doesn’t have anything to do with my life in any way. It never has,” he told the magazine. “I work seriously with complete integrity. I never, never, never have offered a part to anyone who didn’t deserve it, and I’ve never not delivered when I do offer a part.”
Julianne Moore, Rachel McAdams, Selma Blair and Louise Post of the band Veruca Salt are among the at least 310 women who have made harassment allegations against the director. Toback has since claimed that he is innocent of the allegations against him because it’s “biologically impossible” for him to engage in the behavior described by the women since he has diabetes and a heart condition that require medication.
