By addressing his acquittal in a rape trial two months before his celebrated film debuts, Nate Parker hoped to put the matter behind him – but the controversy seems less likely to go away

Following a rapturously received debut at the Sundance film festival in January, Nate Parker’s slavery drama The Birth of a Nation seemed set on a sure trajectory to success and awards nominations. Now that road seems less certain due to a rape allegation and trial from the actor, writer and film-maker’s past.

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On Friday, two of Hollywood’s top trade papers, Variety and Deadline, posted interviews with Parker, in which he directly addressed the circumstances in which he was tried for rape while at college in 1999.

During his sophomore year at Penn State University, Parker and his roommate Jean Celestin, who shares credit with Parker for The Birth of a Nation’s story, were charged with raping a female student while she was unconscious. Both men were suspended from the wrestling team, and Parker later transferred to a different college in Oklahoma.

Parker, who had had an earlier sexual encounter with the victim that both said was consensual, was acquitted of the charges in 2001; Celestin was initially found guilty. He then appealed the verdict and was granted a new trial in 2005 – but the case never came to court after the victim decided not to testify again.

Although there was no retrial, the case led to a lawsuit filed by the Women’s Law Project against the university over its treatment of sexual assault. That suit was settled with a cash sum and a vow to review procedures for sexual assault cases at the school. Court documents show that the woman said she was harassed by Parker and Celestin after she reported the incident to the police. She dropped out of college and is said to have attempted suicide.

On Tuesday, Variety carried an interview with the woman’s older brother Johnny, who said that she had killed herself in 2012. Her death certificate, obtained by the paper, stated that she was suffering “major depressive disorder with psychotic features, PTSD due to physical and sexual abuse, polysubstance abuse …” The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, had had a child since the trial.

Whether or not Parker, who has five daughters, knew that his accuser had died, is unknown. He did not mention the woman’s death in his interviews.

He had told Deadline: “I stand here, a 36-year-old man, 17 years removed from one of the most painful … moments in my life. And I can imagine it was painful for everyone.” He called on women “to stand up, to speak out when they feel violated, in every degree, as I prepare to take my own daughter to college”.

The intention behind the director’s agreement to interviews, well ahead of the film’s release on 7 October, was clear: distributor Fox Searchlight, which bought the film for $17.5m at Sundance, sought to quell the potential controversy that could hinder the film’s awards prospects by having Parker face the legal matter head-on. He brought his six-year-old daughter to the Variety interview, and invited Deadline to his home, scattered with “remnants of the five daughters who live with him all around”.



Fox Searchlight issued a statement to coincide with the two interviews: “Fox Searchlight is aware of the incident that occurred while Nate Parker was at Penn State. We also know that he was found innocent and cleared of all charges. We stand behind Nate and are proud to help bring this important and powerful story to the screen.”

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Parker told Deadline that this would mark the last time he would talk about the case while promoting The Birth of a Nation. “I will not relive that period of my life every time I go under the microscope,” he said. However, the topic is unlikely to go away as Parker promotes the film.

Provocatively named after DW Griffith’s notoriously racist 1915 film, which lionises the Ku Klux Klan and depicts black Americans as savages, Parker’s film centers on the story of Nat Turner, a former slave who led a revolt in 1831 to free African Americans in Virginia.

Variety reported on Monday that Fox Searchlight was having second thoughts about its plan to have Parker attend screenings for the film – which features a rape scene – in churches (Parker is a devout Christian) and on college campuses around the country.

Though the intention was for Parker to discuss issues of social justice raised by the film, each appearance runs the risk of the case being brought up in a public forum. The film company is also considering not granting new interviews with Parker from now until the film screens at the Toronto international film festival in September.

Sources told Variety that Fox Searchlight wasn’t aware of the allegations before buying the film – and had only learned about it after the deal was struck.

Neither profile addressed the alleged comments made by Parker while promoting the 2014 romance Beyond the Lights, when he reportedly said he would not play a gay character in order to “preserve the black man”. In his interview last week, he did, however, tell Deadline he was an LGBT ally, saying: “The black community is my community, the LGBT community too, and the female community. That is my community. That’s me, it’s who I am.”

Johnny, the brother of the woman who accused Parker of rape, told Variety: “His character should be under a microscope because of this incident. If you removed these two people, the project is commendable. But there’s a moral and ethical stance you would expect from someone with regard to this movie.”

He added: “I don’t think a rapist should be celebrated. It’s really a cultural decision we’re making as a society to go to the theater and speak with our dollars and reward a sexual predator.”

Parker’s character seems destined to come under increasing scrutiny as his film airs in cinemas around the world. It will be released in the UK at the end of the year.