David_TheMan
Banned
Hollywood’s Underage Sexual Abuse Problem: 5 Shocking Injustices From ‘An Open Secret’
Underage Hollywood Abuse Revelations from ‘An Open Secret’
Jenna Marotta
Amy Berg 2015's documentary had a quiet release, but it's racked up an estimated 1 million new viewers online since the Weinstein scandal broke.
“An Open Secret”
“An Open Secret” sounds like the perfect title for a brand-new documentary addressing the entertainment industry’s sexual harassment and assault epidemic, which in recent weeks has uncoupled Harvey Weinstein, Roy Price, and Andy Signore from their companies (and caused James Toback, President George H.W. Bush, Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck, and Mark Halperin to confront their own allegations). However, the documentary — which focuses on the abuse male managers, agents, and publicists inflict on young, male clients — premiered at DOC NYC in November 2014 and had a small release the following June (IndieWire awarded it an A-).
Despite its current 93 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, director Amy Berg — who’d previously investigated sexual abuse in “Prophet’s Prey” and “Deliver Us from Evil,” for which she earned a 2007 Best Feature Documentary Oscar nomination — was unable to find a distributor. “An Open Secret” producer Gabe Hoffman claims the film was even accepted, then rejected, from three different film festivals. He recently made the documentary available for free on Vimeo, marketing it as “the film Hollywood doesn’t want you to see.”
It’s terribly relevant: days ago, APA lost “Stranger Things” actor Finn Wolfhard as a client when social media accusations surfaced against his agent, Tyler Grasham, who was then terminated.
Here are five sobering takeaways.
Pedophiles will pay hundreds of dollars on eBay for child actors’ headshots
Mother of child actors and co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation Anne Henry explains how she and her fellow concerned parents worked backward through eBay’s purchase data to identify the most prolific buyers and sellers. To their dismay, they found that friends of youth talent manager Marty Weiss were auctioning their children’s photos to convicted sex offenders (the film includes audio of Weiss confessing to giving clients blow jobs). Bob Villard — who acted as a publicist for minors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire — would also upload his own candid snapshots of young actors, without consulting their parents. One of Villard’s former underage victims recalled spending a weekend at his home, where he was served beers and persuaded to pose shirtless and submit to inappropriate touching. Henry said that Villard’s photo trademark was having “the children are looking up at the camera as they would be looking up at the predator in an abuse situation.”
Evan Henzi appears in “An Open Secret.” He claims he was assaulted by Marty Weiss, who still manages his cousin.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock
“Pedophile ring” DEN was founded by an abuser, his former victim, and a well-known child actor
Brock Pierce, a frequent Villard subject who appeared in “The Mighty Ducks” films, was introduced to Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley by “The Usual Suspects” director Bryan Singer. Collins-Rector and Shackley met in a chatroom, began dating, and moved in together when Shackley was 15 and Collins-Rector was 31. After starting an internet service provider, they recruited Pierce to form the Digital Entertainment Network, a 1998 precursor to modern streaming platforms. DEN provided original content starring child actors. Prior to the company’s planned $75 million IPO, the trio was hit with sexual abuse allegations and a lawsuit filed by a New Jersey who’d worked for Collins-Rector. With an investigation underway, they fled the U.S.; Interpol arrested them in Spain in 2002. Collins-Rector spent 18 months imprisoned prior to extradition, then plead guilty to nine counts of child sexual abuse. He was soon released, and after registering as a convicted sex offender, he ran away to London.
DEN’s early investors included a blockbuster director and a DreamWorks SKG co-founder
In “An Open Secret,” journalist John Connolly says Singer — who has continued directing for the “X-Men” franchise — and David Geffen were among DEN’s original backers, contributing a respective $50,000 and $250,000. As Henry notes in the film, Singer cast former Nickelodeon and Disney Channel actor Brian Peck in the first two “X-Men” films — released in 2000 and 2003 — and Peck’s chat with Singer served as the former’s director’s commentary.
According to documents published by The Daily Mail in summer 2015, Peck became a convicted sex offender in 2004, serving 16 months of jail time. Singer himself was later sued by a teenage extra from his 1998 film “Apt Pupil,” who alleged that the director wanted him and other minors to film a shower scene. That lawsuit was dismissed, as were two additional cases brought against him in 2014.
DEN executives threw drug-fueled sleepovers for young boys at their mansion
At Collins-Rector and Shackley’s palatial Encino estate, a mandatory skinny-dipping was enforced for anyone who wanted go in the hot tub after dusk. Young actors who attended parties remember troves of prescription drugs and alcohol, plus Collins-Rector’s gun collection. One man recalled when, as a minor, Collins-Rector threatened his career if he did not sleep in his bed. Although the actor refused and camped out on the couch, he nonetheless awoke in Collins-Rector’s bed, convinced that a laced drink had led to abuse.
“An Open Secret” director Amy Berg.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock
After appearing in “An Open Secret,” a SAG-AFTRA committee member resigned over his own behavior
Former child actor Michael Harrah was in his 70s and a Screen Actors Guild’s Young Performers Committee member (and it’s co-founder and former chairman) when he sat for an interview with Berg. At first, he is positioned in the film as a wise elder providing cautionary tales, until it is revealed that he too hosts sleepovers with the young clients he manages. At the documentary’s end, an alleged victim of Harrah’s calls him on speakerphone to confront him about groping and sharing a bed; Harrah responds by defending Villard and others — “I’m not sure how horrible they really are.” Days after taping his “Open Secret” testimonial, Harrah resigned. According to, SAG-AFTRA threatened to sue Berg if she did not omit references to the Young Performers Committee. She declined, only editing her footage further to secure a PG-13 rating.
==========
For a hint at how deep this shyt is remember this
Bill Clinton ditched Secret Service on multiple ‘Lolita Express’ flights: Report
Bill Clinton ditched Secret Service on multiple 'Lolita Express' flights: Report
An investigation into official flight records of financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” are once again dragging former President Bill Clinton into the national spotlight.
Flight logs obtained by Gawker in January 2015 put Mr. Clinton on the billionaire’s infamous jet more than a dozen times — sometimes with a woman whom federal prosecutors suspect of procuring underage sex victims for Mr. Epstein. Fox News reported Friday that records show Mr. Clinton declined Secret Service protection on at least five flights.
The network’s investigation reveals Mr. Clinton flew on the Boeing 727 “Lolita Express” 26 times, more than doubling the previously reported 11 trips.
“Bill Clinton … associated with a man like Jeffrey Epstein, who everyone in New York, certainly within his inner circles, knew was a pedophile. Why would a former president associate with a man like that?” said Conchita Sarnoff of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, Fox reported. Ms. Sarnoff also authored a book on Mr. Epstein titled “TrafficKing.”
Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2005 and signed a plea agreement in 2007 with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, accepting a single charge of soliciting prostitution. He agreed to a 30-month sentence, registered as a “Tier 1” sex offender with the U.S. Virgin Islands and paid dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse.
A Clinton spokesperson did not return the network’s emails requesting comment. Martin Weinberg, Mr. Epstein’s attorney, declined multiple inquiries into the flights.
Fox News said that the U.S. Secret Service declined to answer multiple Freedom of Information Act requests on the trips.
---
I feel for these kids, but this shyt is going to get swept under the rug again.
They will position this as being a woman's right thing, burn or liquidate folks like Singer and David Geffen, (ignoring his friend Speilberg) and the others to make this go away.
Its a sick world and society we live in.
Underage Hollywood Abuse Revelations from ‘An Open Secret’
Jenna Marotta
Amy Berg 2015's documentary had a quiet release, but it's racked up an estimated 1 million new viewers online since the Weinstein scandal broke.
“An Open Secret”
“An Open Secret” sounds like the perfect title for a brand-new documentary addressing the entertainment industry’s sexual harassment and assault epidemic, which in recent weeks has uncoupled Harvey Weinstein, Roy Price, and Andy Signore from their companies (and caused James Toback, President George H.W. Bush, Oliver Stone, Ben Affleck, and Mark Halperin to confront their own allegations). However, the documentary — which focuses on the abuse male managers, agents, and publicists inflict on young, male clients — premiered at DOC NYC in November 2014 and had a small release the following June (IndieWire awarded it an A-).
Despite its current 93 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, director Amy Berg — who’d previously investigated sexual abuse in “Prophet’s Prey” and “Deliver Us from Evil,” for which she earned a 2007 Best Feature Documentary Oscar nomination — was unable to find a distributor. “An Open Secret” producer Gabe Hoffman claims the film was even accepted, then rejected, from three different film festivals. He recently made the documentary available for free on Vimeo, marketing it as “the film Hollywood doesn’t want you to see.”
It’s terribly relevant: days ago, APA lost “Stranger Things” actor Finn Wolfhard as a client when social media accusations surfaced against his agent, Tyler Grasham, who was then terminated.
Here are five sobering takeaways.
Pedophiles will pay hundreds of dollars on eBay for child actors’ headshots
Mother of child actors and co-founder of the BizParentz Foundation Anne Henry explains how she and her fellow concerned parents worked backward through eBay’s purchase data to identify the most prolific buyers and sellers. To their dismay, they found that friends of youth talent manager Marty Weiss were auctioning their children’s photos to convicted sex offenders (the film includes audio of Weiss confessing to giving clients blow jobs). Bob Villard — who acted as a publicist for minors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire — would also upload his own candid snapshots of young actors, without consulting their parents. One of Villard’s former underage victims recalled spending a weekend at his home, where he was served beers and persuaded to pose shirtless and submit to inappropriate touching. Henry said that Villard’s photo trademark was having “the children are looking up at the camera as they would be looking up at the predator in an abuse situation.”
Evan Henzi appears in “An Open Secret.” He claims he was assaulted by Marty Weiss, who still manages his cousin.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock
“Pedophile ring” DEN was founded by an abuser, his former victim, and a well-known child actor
Brock Pierce, a frequent Villard subject who appeared in “The Mighty Ducks” films, was introduced to Marc Collins-Rector and Chad Shackley by “The Usual Suspects” director Bryan Singer. Collins-Rector and Shackley met in a chatroom, began dating, and moved in together when Shackley was 15 and Collins-Rector was 31. After starting an internet service provider, they recruited Pierce to form the Digital Entertainment Network, a 1998 precursor to modern streaming platforms. DEN provided original content starring child actors. Prior to the company’s planned $75 million IPO, the trio was hit with sexual abuse allegations and a lawsuit filed by a New Jersey who’d worked for Collins-Rector. With an investigation underway, they fled the U.S.; Interpol arrested them in Spain in 2002. Collins-Rector spent 18 months imprisoned prior to extradition, then plead guilty to nine counts of child sexual abuse. He was soon released, and after registering as a convicted sex offender, he ran away to London.
DEN’s early investors included a blockbuster director and a DreamWorks SKG co-founder
In “An Open Secret,” journalist John Connolly says Singer — who has continued directing for the “X-Men” franchise — and David Geffen were among DEN’s original backers, contributing a respective $50,000 and $250,000. As Henry notes in the film, Singer cast former Nickelodeon and Disney Channel actor Brian Peck in the first two “X-Men” films — released in 2000 and 2003 — and Peck’s chat with Singer served as the former’s director’s commentary.
According to documents published by The Daily Mail in summer 2015, Peck became a convicted sex offender in 2004, serving 16 months of jail time. Singer himself was later sued by a teenage extra from his 1998 film “Apt Pupil,” who alleged that the director wanted him and other minors to film a shower scene. That lawsuit was dismissed, as were two additional cases brought against him in 2014.
DEN executives threw drug-fueled sleepovers for young boys at their mansion
At Collins-Rector and Shackley’s palatial Encino estate, a mandatory skinny-dipping was enforced for anyone who wanted go in the hot tub after dusk. Young actors who attended parties remember troves of prescription drugs and alcohol, plus Collins-Rector’s gun collection. One man recalled when, as a minor, Collins-Rector threatened his career if he did not sleep in his bed. Although the actor refused and camped out on the couch, he nonetheless awoke in Collins-Rector’s bed, convinced that a laced drink had led to abuse.
“An Open Secret” director Amy Berg.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock
After appearing in “An Open Secret,” a SAG-AFTRA committee member resigned over his own behavior
Former child actor Michael Harrah was in his 70s and a Screen Actors Guild’s Young Performers Committee member (and it’s co-founder and former chairman) when he sat for an interview with Berg. At first, he is positioned in the film as a wise elder providing cautionary tales, until it is revealed that he too hosts sleepovers with the young clients he manages. At the documentary’s end, an alleged victim of Harrah’s calls him on speakerphone to confront him about groping and sharing a bed; Harrah responds by defending Villard and others — “I’m not sure how horrible they really are.” Days after taping his “Open Secret” testimonial, Harrah resigned. According to, SAG-AFTRA threatened to sue Berg if she did not omit references to the Young Performers Committee. She declined, only editing her footage further to secure a PG-13 rating.
==========
For a hint at how deep this shyt is remember this
Bill Clinton ditched Secret Service on multiple ‘Lolita Express’ flights: Report
Bill Clinton ditched Secret Service on multiple 'Lolita Express' flights: Report
An investigation into official flight records of financier and convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” are once again dragging former President Bill Clinton into the national spotlight.
Flight logs obtained by Gawker in January 2015 put Mr. Clinton on the billionaire’s infamous jet more than a dozen times — sometimes with a woman whom federal prosecutors suspect of procuring underage sex victims for Mr. Epstein. Fox News reported Friday that records show Mr. Clinton declined Secret Service protection on at least five flights.
The network’s investigation reveals Mr. Clinton flew on the Boeing 727 “Lolita Express” 26 times, more than doubling the previously reported 11 trips.
“Bill Clinton … associated with a man like Jeffrey Epstein, who everyone in New York, certainly within his inner circles, knew was a pedophile. Why would a former president associate with a man like that?” said Conchita Sarnoff of the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, Fox reported. Ms. Sarnoff also authored a book on Mr. Epstein titled “TrafficKing.”
Mr. Epstein was arrested in 2005 and signed a plea agreement in 2007 with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, accepting a single charge of soliciting prostitution. He agreed to a 30-month sentence, registered as a “Tier 1” sex offender with the U.S. Virgin Islands and paid dozens of young girls under a federal statute providing for compensation to victims of child sexual abuse.
A Clinton spokesperson did not return the network’s emails requesting comment. Martin Weinberg, Mr. Epstein’s attorney, declined multiple inquiries into the flights.
Fox News said that the U.S. Secret Service declined to answer multiple Freedom of Information Act requests on the trips.
---
I feel for these kids, but this shyt is going to get swept under the rug again.
They will position this as being a woman's right thing, burn or liquidate folks like Singer and David Geffen, (ignoring his friend Speilberg) and the others to make this go away.
Its a sick world and society we live in.
