Jared Leto has long been a person with something of a reputational issue. The public-facing side of this was bad enough – while playing The Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad, he reportedly sent rats, dead pigs and used condoms to his cast mates – but for years there have been upsetting rumours about what he does in private. After a lengthy investigation, the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret has finally brought at least some of them to light.
This is, as you might imagine, not a fun thing to watch. The film documents allegations of what are said to be decades of systematic criminal misconduct against teenage girls. The women interviewed here allege sexual assault, threatened sexual assault, sexualised grooming and statutory rape. They are backed up by anonymous male former co-workers who claim to have witnessed the machinery that Leto set up to procure underage girls from concerts.
What is particularly galling about Hollywood’s Dark Secret is that this is not the first time someone has tried to investigate these claims. As far back as 2005, the New York Post was running gossip columns that claimed he was “aggressively pursuing” what were described as “underage objects of desire” at a New York hotel. By 2018, actor Dylan Sprouse and director James Gunn were trading jokes about Leto’s interest in teenage girls online. Last year, Air Mail’s Elena Clavarino spoke to nine women who variously claimed that Leto pursued them, engaged in sexually explicit telephone conversations with them, exposed himself to them and masturbated in front of them – all while they were underage.
When that report was published, Leto’s representatives issued a denial. It seemed that everything continued as normal. He promoted his movie. He toured with his band. For a while it seemed that the world had blinked and moved on.
However, something with the heft of Hollywood’s Dark Secret will be harder to ignore. Released on YouTube as well as the BBC to ensure maximum impact, it is a disturbing look at what is alleged to be a skin-crawling pattern of behaviour. Jessica Sartenaer and her team have put together a case that bears the unmistakable smell of shoe leather. Clearly, it often takes a long time for allegations like this to see the light because of a culture of silence. People are often scared to go public for fear of shame or reprisal, and it is in the financial interests of many people to keep the Jared Leto machine running as long as possible.
That Sartenaer was able to find four women, and allay their concerns enough to let them show their faces onscreen, speaks volumes. We should let their testimonies speak for themselves (this really is a documentary that deserves to be seen, rather than simply read about), but their bravery deserves to be commended.
Although historical – these women are now all in their 20s, 30s and 40s – it is difficult to watch them recount what they experienced while they were underage. Some of their stories are straight from the Hollywood predator playbook, with them being procured by Leto’s team and led to dingy hotel rooms. Others are more baffling, like the woman who found herself receiving sexually explicit calls from Leto as a 16-year-old girl, only to then receive further calls of a similar nature from a man she believes was Leto in character as somebody else.
Cumulatively, when these stories have been added to archive footage of concerts where Leto has his arms draped around young girls, and talkshow appearances where he brags about sleeping with fans, and one particularly unnerving clip where he quotes the old Dazed and Confused line about high school girls – “I keep getting older but they stay the same age” – the effect is completely disturbing.
So far, Leto has been bulletproof against allegations like these, but you can’t help feeling that this film will land a blow. Of course, it should be noted that the timing of the documentary might help. Leto is no longer the box office draw he once was. Last year’s Tron: Ares reportedly lost somewhere in the region of $130m, and his latest film – Masters of the Universe – is among the biggest flops of the year so far. It isn’t the best reflection of Hollywood that it will only choose to round on alleged sexual predators once the bottom line has been weakened, but better late than never.
Leto declined to comment to Sartenaer and her team, unlike the robust denial he gave after the Air Mail investigation. Maybe it’s a sign that the floodgates will finally open?
Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret is on BBC iPlayer and YouTube now
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