Ed Westwick has denied rape, after being accused of assaulting actress Kristina Cohen three years ago.
The ‘Gossip Girl’ actor took to Twitter to share a response to a Facebook post Kristina shared on Monday (6 November).
In the post, Kristina said that she met the ‘Gossip Girl’ actor through her boyfriend at the time, a producer who she did not name, writing that the incident occurred when the couple went over to actor’s house one night.
Kristina claimed to have been taken aback when the actor allegedly suggested “we should all fuck”, but her boyfriend convinced her to stay for dinner to avoid making their host uncomfortable.
At Westwick’s suggestion, Cohen said she then retired to the guest room for a nap while her boyfriend tried to smooth things over.
“So I went and laid down in the guest room where I eventually fell asleep, I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body. I told him to stop, but he was strong,” she wrote. “I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to fuck me.
“I was paralysed, terrified. I couldn’t speak, I could no longer move. He held me down and raped me.”
“It was a nightmare, and the days following weren’t any better,” she added.
HuffPost UK has reached out to Ed Westwick’s manager for comment about the allegations.
Kristina then wrote that her then-boyfriend blamed her for the assault, and cautioned against speaking out against Westwick for the sake of her career.
The actress said the recent wave of sexual assault allegations leveled against powerful men in Hollywood pushed her to come forward with her story now.
“I’m sickened to see men like Ed respected in such a public way. Interviewed by prestigious platforms such as the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University, where he was honoured as one of their ‘People who Shape our World’,” Cohen wrote. “How does this end? Men like Ed using fame and power to rape and intimidate but then continue through the world collecting accolades.”
She concluded: “I hope that my stories and the stories of others help to reset and realign the toxic environments and power imbalances that have created these monsters.”
Read Cohen’s full post on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Useful helplines and websites:
- Victim Support - Visit victimsupport.org.uk or call 0808 168 9111 Sexual Abuse Referral Centres - Find a SARC
- Rape Crisis - Visit rapecrisis.org.uk or call 0808 802 9999 The Rape and Abuse Line - Visit rapeandabuseline.co.uk or call 0808 800 0123 (answered by women) or 0808 800 0122 (answered by men).
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