Jared Leto’s upcoming film “Lunik Heist,” a Searchlight Pictures project, is now on hold amid new sexual misconduct allegations.
On Wednesday, the BBC revealed that in total 10 women have come forward with allegations against the Oscar-winning actor and frontman of rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars as part of a new BBC documentary titled Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret.
Four of the women have accused Leto of criminal sexual conduct, all occurring when they were teenagers, according to the BBC.
The allegations against the 54-year-old stem from incidents between 2002 and 2016.
“I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false,” Leto said in a statement given to The Hollywood Reporter.
In the BBC report, one of the women claims she was sexually assaulted by Leto in a motel bathroom when she was 17.
A second woman says Leto threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19, after being “unexpectedly” left alone with him in a hotel.
A third describes how she allegedly had sex with Leto in California when she was 17, under the age of consent, which therefore would be classified as statutory rape. A fourth women alleges Leto made repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16 and, on at least one occasion, suggested that they should have sex.
Additional claims come from women who say they received “strange and often very sexual” calls from Leto, as well as one occasion where he made a lewd comment about a 14-year-old’s chest during an autograph-signing event.
The BBC says it has seen the NDA, and “corroborated” a number of the accounts with friends and family of the women involved.
Two men who worked with Leto’s band told the documentary staff were “uncomfortable” about the way Leto would interact with teenage girls. They say he would sometimes invite them backstage to his dressing room or invite them to the house where he was recording.
“I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big,” one of the men, unnamed in the BBC report, says.
A post went up on Instagram by an LA-based DJ called Allie Teilz accusing Leto of sexual misconduct.
Allie Teilz reposted an old Facebook status to her Instagram Story, writing: “Youre [sic] not really in L.A. until Jared Leto tries to force himself on you backstage… In a kilt.. And a snow hat,” She added: “I was assaulted and traumatized by this creep when I was 17.”
She followed up with a second post, stating: “He knew my age and didn’t care. What he did was predatory, terrifying and unacceptable.”
Teilz’s posts triggered an overwhelming number of responses from women with similar stories, prompting her to share more than 50 of those stories.
In a BBC story published Wednesday, one woman alleged she had sex with Leto at his California home when she was 17 years old. According to the outlet, the woman said Leto, who was 34 at the time, dismissed concerns after they discussed California’s age of consent being 18. “It wasn’t a huge concern for him,” she alleged. “He told me, ‘I would like you to call me daddy.’ And it was either pretend to be a little girl or ‘my little girl.'”
The woman said that because she was “so naive and vulnerable” at the time, she didn’t understand that this behavior wasn’t “normal” in an adult relationship. “It was only as time went on that I realized more and more how scary that really was,” she said.
Hollywood is distancing itself from Leto over the mounting accusations.
NBC News has learned that one upcoming film set to co-star Leto has stalled and another potential role for the actor never materialized.
The film industry is watching closely whether his major studio roles survive.
The Oscar winner has two starring roles in the big-budget films “Tron: Ares” and “Masters of the Universe” in the next 12 months.
Industry insiders are wondering how he can shoulder the pressure of selling two theatrical movies and dance around the damning claims.
Another woman claimed she began a texting relationship with Leto when she was underage. She said things could turn uncomfortable when she visited his home, with the actor asking her sexual questions. In an alleged encounter when she was 18, the woman claimed Leto “suddenly pulled his penis out and started masturbating,” then “walked over, grabbed my hand, and put it on him.”
One woman included in the report described an alleged interaction with Leto in which she claimed he made an inappropriate sexual remark to her at a music festival when she was 14 years old. The woman claimed Leto made the comment in front of her mother, who confronted him about the comment, which she said he dismissed, according to the BBC report.
Leto’s representatives have flatly denied every claim.
A representative for Leto told Air Mail that “all of the allegations are expressly denied.”
Leto did not provide the BBC with a response before the documentary aired.
In the viral moment that set off the latest wave of allegations,
Allie Teilz shared an old Facebook post of hers from 2012 on her Instagram Stories. In it, she wrote, “Youre [sic] not really in LA until Jared Leto tries to force himself on you backstage at an M83 show.. In a Kilt.. And a snow hat.” That post, which has since expired, then yielded numerous replies from other women who started sharing their experiences with Leto.
That discussion was soon followed by the Air Mail report and now the BBC documentary.
The BBC said it counted more than 120 separate allegations made about Leto’s behavior toward women, many of them online, some of which were historical.
Leto’s band is also scheduled to tour Europe in April 2027.