Netflix is in hot water after confirming that one of its senior executives told an alleged rape victim that the company didn’t believe her and three other women who have accused actor Danny Masterson of rape.
Masterson, who currently stars in the Netflix series The Ranch, is accused of raping four women in the early 2000s. Netflix has known about the allegations since at least March 2017, when journalist Tony Ortega revealed that the LAPD had an active investigation into the allegations.
As per a Huffington Post report by journalist Yashar Ali, one of the women – identified only as Victim B – approached Netflix’s director of global kids content Andy Yeatman at a kid’s soccer game.
Victim B asked Yeatman if he worked at Netflix, and Yeatman replied in the affirmative. She then asked him why Netflix was not taking action against Masterson in light of the investigation. He replied that while Netflix takes sexual misconduct allegations seriously, in this case, “We don’t believe them”, meaning the alleged victims.
She told the Huffington Post that she was “left stunned”, and told him, “I’m one of them,” meaning one of the victims.
The conversation ended quickly, but Yeatman later approached Victim B, telling her he’d had no idea she was one of the victims. Shereplied, “I hope no one ever says that to your daughter.”
Netflix has confirmed that Yeatman made these “careless” and “uninformed” comments about the accusations, but denied that Yeatman, when told by Victim B that “Netflix is going to regret this, this is a mistake, they’re going to see”, replied, “We’ll see.”
Masterson, a Scientologist, is accused of spiking the drinks of four different women, three of them Scientologists, in the early 2000s and violently raping them.
Church doctrine forbids members to report crimes against other Scientologists to law enforcement, a ‘crime’ punishable by becoming a suppressive person, meaning that they will be shunned by the Church as well as friends and family members.
Despite this, Victim B filed a police report against Masterson in 2004, but as the Huffington Post reports, the case was thwarted when dozens of Scientologists filed affidavits claiming that Victim B was lying.
Masterson has always denied the rape allegations.
An online petition calling on Netflix to cancel The Ranch, which was started after Netflix’s swift response on House of Cards in the wake of the Kevin Spacey allegations, has reached over 37,000 signatures.
“Netflix did the right thing by cancelling House of Cards once they learned that the star, Kevin Spacey, was accused of sexual assault against a minor,” it says. “Now it has come out that the star of The Ranch, Danny Masterson, allegedly raped four women. We must urge Netflix to continue to fire rapists.”
If you would like to access support for issues around sexual assault, please call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732.
