As the list of men accused of sexual harassment (and subsequently often being fired from their powerful positions at everything from media companies and TV networks to cultural organizations and Hollywood studios) keeps on getting longer, a new man has come under fire amid rape allegations. On Monday, December 4, Netflix announced that they are cutting all ties with Danny Masterson, the star of their show The Ranch, after rape allegations against him have emerged or, should we say, re-emerged.
In March this year, PEOPLE first detailed how three women filed police reports with the Los Angeles Police Department in which they all accused Masterson of sexually assaulting them in the early 2000s. One woman said that Masterson raped her while she was sleeping. Another woman had a strikingly similar encounted with Masterson, where he had allegedly, “sexually assaulted the victim while she was passed out,” according to the police report obtained by PEOPLE.
Masterson immediately denied these allegations when they were first made public back in the spring of 2017, and even though an investigation was opened up by the LAPD, no charges were filed. Now, fast forward to December 4, when the Huffington Post published an article detailing how one of the women accusing Masterson of rape had told the news site that she had had a discussion with a high-up Netflix exec over the weekend, in which the Netflix exec told her that he didn’t believe any of the rape allegations made against Masterson. The executive, Andy Yeatman, didn’t know at the time that “the woman he was speaking to had accused Masterson of rape,” according to statement made by Netflix to the Huffington Post.
Following this article, on December 5, Netflix finally decided that it was time to cut ties completely with Masterson. “As a result of ongoing discussions, Netflix and the producers have written Danny Masterson out of The Ranch,” Netflix said in a statement on Tuesday.
And as a happy as we are that men such as Masterson are finally seeing the long overdue consequences of their unlawful, abusive and misogynist behavior towards women and girls, and that the #MeToo movement has more or less forced companies to actually take action and put in place repercussions for predatory behavior, we cannot deny that this pattern has been going on in the shadows of every industry and every workplace for so long, with no consequences. Masterson and Netflix are just one example of this, but there are so many more.
Top photo: The Ranch/Netflix
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