- Four women accused Jared Leto of sexual assault between 2002 and 2016 in a BBC documentary
- Leto denied all allegations, calling the claims absolutely and categorically false
- Ten women spoke to the BBC, with nine sharing their stories publicly for the first time
Four women publicly accused Suicide Squad actor Jared Leto of sexual assault in a new BBC documentary, Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret. All four said they encountered Leto between 2002 and 2016, when he was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54.
After the documentary was released, Leto said in a statement delivered by his representatives to the BBC: "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false."
Ten women spoke to the BBC for the documentary, nine of them sharing their stories publicly for the first time.
Most of the women said the alleged incidents occurred when they were teenagers.
The allegations
One woman said she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom when she was 17.
Another said the Hollywood star threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after she was unexpectedly left alone with him in a hotel room.
A third described having underage sex with the star in California when she was 17 — which would be classed as statutory rape. The woman said Leto "shrugged off" a conversation about the age of consent being 18 in the US state.
The fourth woman described 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 said, he suggested they should have sex.
The BBC corroborated several of the women's accounts with friends and family who were told about the encounters at the time.
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 to the house where he was recording.
The BBC has catalogued more than 120 separate online allegations relating to his behaviour towards women, some of them historical.
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 films such as Fight Club, Blade Runner 2049, Suicide Squad and, most recently, Masters of the Universe.
His award-winning rock band, Thirty Seconds to Mars, was formed in 1998.
