Rita Moreno Says She Was Sexually Harassed As a Young Actress
In the 1950s, there was no greater star than Academy Award-winner Rita Morena, who starred in West Side Story and The King and I. Now, she’s coming out saying she was sexually harassed in the 1950s.
The EGOT member — performers who’ve won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — said she was chased by then-Fox studio chief Buddy Adler when she was only 18.
“He just took one look at me and said ‘ooooh,’” Moreno recalled of Adler. From then on, he continuously called the home Moreno shared with three other women. She told the crowd that she made a point of dining in the commissary with a friend to avoid being caught alone with the executive. It was an open secret on the lot that he already had a mistress.
“I just kind of knew this was not the person I wanted to mess around with,” she said. “You can imagine as a Latino kid it was so important for me to be in movies. I wanted to be a movie star so badly.”
She continued: He’d come and get me. I would say something stupid like ‘Oh my goodness.’ The kind of thing you do when you’re very young and truly, truly innocent and untouched… You never get over something like that. I just want to say — you know what? I’m still f—king here.”
H/T: Page Six