Four women accuse Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct

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Watch: Four women accuse Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct

Warning: Contains graphic details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct, as well as strong language

Four women have accused Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct, with the alleged offences having taken place when they were teenagers.

One of the women says she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17. Another says the Hollywood star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19, and had been unexpectedly left alone with him in a hotel room.

A third describes how she had under-age sex with the star in California when she was 17 - which would be classified as statutory rape. Leto "shrugged off" a conversation about the age of consent being 18 in the US state, she says.

The fourth woman describes being groomed by Leto, saying he abused his celebrity status by making repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16. On at least one occasion, she says he suggested they should have sex.

She was subsequently sent a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent her from talking about her relationship with Leto, which the BBC has seen. However, she refused to sign.

Four further women also say they received strange and often very sexual phone calls from Leto when they were younger.

Another woman says, when she was 14, he instructed a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival after having made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph-signing. The girl's mother confronted Leto, but he repeated the comment, it is alleged.

In total, 10 women have spoken to the BBC documentary - Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret - with nine of them sharing their stories publicly for the first time.

All the women say they encountered Leto between 2002 and 2016, when he was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54.

"This was 25 years ago… he has gotten away with it," says one of his alleged victims.

The BBC has corroborated a number of the women's accounts with friends and family who were told about the encounters with Leto at the time. In some cases, we have also seen pictures and messages that support the women's accounts.

Two men who worked with Leto's band for many years also told the documentary how uncomfortable staff felt about the way Leto would interact with teenage girls, sometimes inviting them backstage to his dressing room or inviting them to the house where he was recording.

"I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big," one says.

Despite repeated attempts to contact Jared Leto before publication, he did not respond to the allegations put to him by the BBC.

After this story was published, Leto said in a statement released by his representatives to the BBC: "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false".

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, As well as acting, Leto is the frontman for the award-winning band Thirty Seconds to Mars

Leto has been a prominent actor since the 1990s and won the 2014 Academy Award for best supporting actor for Dallas Buyers Club. He has appeared in hit films such as Fight Club, Blade Runner 2049, Suicide Squad and, most recently, featured in Masters of the Universe.

His award-winning rock band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, was formed in 1998 and is touring mainland Europe and the UK next spring, with concerts at the O2 London and Manchester's Co-op Live arena.

Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret

Multiple women accuse the Oscar-winning actor of sexual misconduct.

Watch now on iPlayer or on BBC Three at 21:00 or BBC One at 22:45 on Wednesday 29 July.

Watch on iPlayer A version of the BBC documentary is available to watch on YouTube , external

Allegations against Leto have lingered for decades. The BBC has counted more than 120 separate allegations made online relating to his behaviour towards women, some of them historical.

Last year, allegations flared up again when a Los Angeles DJ named Allie Teilz posted on social media saying she had been assaulted by the actor when she was 17, prompting several other women to come forward with similar claims.

Nine women last year also accused Leto of sexual impropriety , external in an article by US media outlet Air Mail. He denied all the allegations.

In the BBC documentary, the four women who allege criminal behaviour - Isabel, Alex, Clara and Etta - describe in detail what they say happened to them in their encounters with the star.

Now in her 40s, Isabel (not her real name) says she only recently stopped blaming herself for the sexual assault that she says took place in 2002, when she was 17.

"Most of my life I had viewed this event as, I was a stupid girl… and so this bad thing happened."

Isabel says she agreed to meet Leto at his hotel after she had shown the actor and his friends around the Las Vegas store where she was working.

Image caption, Isabel says for years she blamed herself after Leto sexually assaulted her in 2002

The address she was given turned out to be a "dingy gross motel", but she says she presumed they would be heading out somewhere else.

Isabel says she was sitting on the bed waiting for Leto to get ready, when he called her into the bathroom so the pair could talk while he showered.

"I don't think there was many words exchanged and he opened the shower curtain and started kissing me," she tells the documentary.

He then grabbed her hand and used it to masturbate himself, she says.

Taken by surprise, the then-teenager says she pulled away and told him she wanted to leave.

Putting on a towel, Leto went outside and appeared to check who was around, she says, before letting her out of the room.

It was only later, she says, when she looked up the actor online, that she realised he was in his 30s.

Image caption, Isabel was 17 when she met Leto

In the 2010s, Thirty Seconds to Mars was headlining in major international arenas, and crew working with the band would call local modelling agencies to offer female models free VIP tickets, according to one ex-crew member we are calling Brad.

"That [request] was direct from Jared," he says.

There would be a backstage room for the models, he confirms, describing the task of requesting only females as "a little bit uncomfortable".

Ex-model Alex says her agency was invited to the band's concert at London's O2 arena in 2013. Leto's female assistant then invited her to an after-party at Shoreditch House in east London, she says.

Alex was 19 at the time, but says to protect herself she "felt the need" to pretend to be younger when she met Leto.

She says she told him she was 17, and that Leto, then 41, replied: "Age is just a number, and anyway, we're in Europe."

Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Crew members say they were told to offer female models VIP tickets to see Leto's band

Although her phone battery was dying and she felt drunk, Alex says, one of Leto's assistants encouraged her to go to another party at a nearby hotel later.

"I get into the hotel room, it's really dark, and then I see that it's just him," she tells the documentary. "Weren't there supposed to be other people?"

She says she then asked whether he had a phone charger or any cash, so she could get home, but that Leto said no to both.

Out of options, Alex says she considered whether she might be able to sleep on the chaise longue in the room.

But when she asked Leto if she could do that, Alex says the star responded by saying that, if she did, she would wake up "with a dick in her ass".

He repeated this response several times, she says - and it was then that she realised "I'm not safe" and left the room.

Alex says she later texted a friend to tell her what had happened.

"He was threatening sexual assault, you should report him," her friend replied.

Image caption, Alex says Leto threatened her with sexual assault after she was lured to his hotel room

For a long time, Alex says she tried to dismiss what happened, but she now believes the hotel encounter had been "all planned out".

"The assistant knew what to say, to lure me into his hotel room," she tells the BBC.

Brad, the former crew member, describes young girls joining Leto on stage for final songs at gigs, and then crew members being instructed to invite them backstage.