This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The actor Richard Dreyfuss has denied exposing himself to a female writer helping him with a TV script in the 1980s.

George Takei responds to accusation he sexually assaulted a young actor Read more

Dreyfuss told the New York magazine blog Vulture he flirted with and even kissed Los Angeles writer Jessica Teich over several years but thought it was a “consensual seduction ritual”.

The fact that “I did not get it”, he said, “makes me reassess every relationship I have ever thought was playful and mutual.”

Teich told Vulture she met Dreyfuss at a theater where she worked and they spent hours together over several years after she was hired to develop a script for an ABC comedy special. The actor, she said, made continual, overt and lewd comments and invitations but she never told anyone. Dreyfuss, now 70, said Teich was a friend of more than 30 years.

In 1987, Teich said, she was summoned to his trailer on the set of one of Dreyfuss’s films and he exposed his genitals to her. On Saturday Dreyfuss’s agent, Barry McPherson, said his client denied ever exposing himself to Teich.

Regarding other encounters with Teich, Dreyfuss said he was now “horrified and bewildered to discover that it wasn’t consensual”.

Teich said she decided to speak out after Dreyfuss tweeted support for his son, Harry, after the younger Dreyfuss went public with accusations that the actor Kevin Spacey groped his crotch when he was 18.

Play Video 3:21 Kevin Spacey assaulted my son, says former TV news anchor – video

In Massachusetts, prosecutors said on Friday they would meet with the son of a former Boston TV news anchor who said Spacey sexually assaulted the teenage boy at a Nantucket restaurant. The Cape and Islands district attorney, Michael O’Keefe, told the Boston Globe the meeting “will occur soon”.

Heather Unruh told reporters on Wednesday that Spacey stuck his hand down her then 18-year-old son’s pants and grabbed his genitals in July 2016. Unruh said Spacey left to use the bathroom and when he was out of sight, her son ran away.

Spacey’s lawyer did not immediately return an email seeking comment. The actor apologised for one of many recent allegations against him but attracted criticism for conflating that apology with a public announcement concerning his sexuality.