Matthew Lawrence reported that he was sexually harassed by an A-list film director which ultimately led to his agency apparently firing him.
On the Apr. 28 episode of the Brotherly Love podcast alongside his brothers, Andrew and Joey Lawrence, he opened up about the #MeToo movement. During the episode, he detailed the moment when a Hollywood director requested that he takes his clothes off during a meeting.
“There’s [sic] been many times in my life where I’ve been propositioned to get a huge role,” Matthew admitted. “I lost my agency because I went to the hotel room,” he shared in regard to not meeting the director’s demands.
He explained that a “prominent” director “showed up in his robe [in a hotel room], asked me to take my clothes off, said he needed to take Polaroids of me and said if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next Marvel character.”
Matthew said that he was shocked that his agency would even put him in that position and that the firm ultimately fired him because he wouldn’t accept the “Oscar Award-winning” director’s demands. He told his fellow co-hosts that he believes our society is not ready to have these conversations with men being victims of sexual harassment.
“Not a lot of guys in my opinion have come out and talked about this in the industry,” he added. “Now granted, it’s probably about a third of what women go through. Men go through this as well… I think our society is less ready to hear that situation is going on with men than they are with women.”
In the TikTok comments section, listeners speculated that the director he was referencing could be Bryan Singer. He directed the two X-Men films in the early 2000s and was previously accused of sexual assault by at least four men who were allegedly underage at the time of the reported incidents. At this time, no legal/criminal charges have been filed against Singer for any assaults or harassment. However, the one detail to note is that Singer is not an Oscar winner like Matthew mentioned in the interview.