The Hellboy star claims the disgraced film-maker sexually harassed her and then suggested that he could have her killed if she told her story

Selma Blair has alleged that the film-maker James Toback threatened to kill her after he sexually harassed her in 1999.



The actor, known for roles in Hellboy and Cruel Intentions, shared her story with Vanity Fair, joining more than 200 other women who have gone public with allegations against the director in the wake of revelations about Harvey Weinstein’s history of sexual misconduct. Oscar nominee Rachel McAdams has also revealed a similar tale of Toback’s alleged behavior.

James Toback: the film-maker accused of being a sexual predator Read more

Blair, 45, decided to speak out about her experience with Toback after last week’s Los Angeles Times report, which compiled testimony from 38 different women who alleged they had been sexual harassed by the 72-year-old. Toback, the director of films such as Two Girls and a Guy and Seduced and Abandoned, has denied any wrongdoing, claiming he had not met any of the women quoted in the article or that if he had, their meetings were brief. A follow-up piece claimed that 200 women had since shared similar stories.

“When he called these women liars, and said he didn’t recall meeting them and that the behavior alleged could not be attributed to him, I just felt rage and an obligation to speak publicly now,” Blair said.

Her experience with Toback took place in 1999 during a meeting to discuss his film Harvard Man, which he had written but not yet cast. While waiting for him, a hostess approached Blair and told her Toback would not be coming down but that he had requested she join him in his hotel room. “Against my better judgment, I went upstairs,” Blair told the magazine.

In the hotel room, Toback allegedly asked Blair to take her clothes off and perform a monologue. When he asked her to have sex with him, Blair refused, but Toback insisted she let him pleasure himself in front of her and said: “You cannot leave until I have release.”

She continued: “He walked me back to the bed. He sat me down. He got on his knees. And he continued to press so hard against my leg. He was greasy and I had to look into those big brown eyes. I tried to look away, but he would hold my face. So I was forced to look into his eyes. And I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil. His energy was so sinister.”



Blair claims that Toback intimidated her into keeping quiet about their interaction by threatening her life.

“There is a girl who went against me,” she quoted him as saying. “She was going to talk about something I did. I am going to tell you, and this is a promise, if she ever tells anybody, no matter how much time she thinks went by, I have people who will pull up in a car, kidnap her and throw her in the Hudson river with cement blocks on her feet. You understand what I’m talking about, right?”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rachel McAdams in 2016. Photograph: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images

McAdams, who was 21 at the time of her encounter with Toback, said she was invited to audition at his hotel in Toronto.

“He invited me to sit on the floor, which was a bit awkward,” the Mean Girls star said. “Pretty quickly the conversation turned quite sexual and he said, ‘You know, I just have to tell you. I have masturbated countless times today thinking about you since we met at your audition.’”

Toback then allegedly asked if he could see her pubic hair; shortly after she excused herself from the room. “I was very lucky that I left and he didn’t actually physically assault me in any way,” she said.

These latest allegations against Toback come shortly after Julianne Moore tweeted about her own experience with Toback in the 1980s. Toback declined Vanity Fair’s request for comment on Blair and McAdams’s allegations.