John Kricfalusi, the hugely influential animator who created Ren & Stimpy, has been accused by two women of preying on them from extremely young ages, and enacting subsequent years of sexual harassment.
A huge report detailed by Buzzfeed News details the stories of Robin Byrd and Katie Rice, both of whom were teenage fans of Ren & Stimpy and both of whom harboured interests in getting into the animation industry.
The accusations from both Byrd and Rice range from sustained workplace harassment, to grooming of them while they were underage, to outright statutory rape and possession of child pornography.
In the case of Byrd, she was 13-years-old in 1994 when she sent a video message to Kricfalusi, her idol at that point, detailing her dreams of pursuing a career as an animator. Kricfalusi responded by writing a letter in response. But that soon escalated to Kricfalusi, who was aged 39 at the time, sending boxes of toys and art supplies to Byrd. He is said to have gone so far as to fly to Arizona to visit Byrd in the trailer park where she lived.
Upon reaching the 11th Grade, and at the age of 16, Kricfalusi flew Byrd out to Los Angeles, allegedly groping her during a visit to his studio. Months later, Kricfalusi is said to have arranged an internship for the still 16-year-old Byrd at his Spumco studio, where the teenage Byrd began, in essence, residing with Kricfalusi as his live-in girlfriend.
Byrd ultimately “fled animation to get away from him.”
For Rice, she first wrote to the Ren & Stimpy creator when she was aged 14, and the pair began corresponding via AOL. A few days after she turned 15, she received an email from the then 41-year-old Kricfalusi that, among other things, stated “I’m thinking about you very hard right now. And I have a little tickle in my chest.” Rice also asserts that, at around that time, she shared late-night phone conversations with Kricfalusi where he would masturbate on the other end of the line.
Kricfalusi’s relationships with underage girls were, much like many other men accused of horrendous harassment in recent times, something of an open secret in the animation industry. When pressed for comment, a lawyer for Kricfalusi confirmed he had a “16-year-old girlfriend,” attempting to play off the 90s as a period of fragility for the animator. The age of consent in California, both back then and still now, is 18.
He was summarily fired from Ren & Stimpy and Nickelodeon in 1992. In light of these accusations, the network confirmed they were not aware of any misdoing at the time.
You can read the allegations in detail via this link.
