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'X-Men' Director Bryan Singer Accused Of Rape and Abuse

A new investigation published in The Atlantic contains testimony from multiple men who alleged Singer and his associates targeted underage boys in a pattern of sexual coercion and abuse.
Movie director Bryan Singer at a premiere
Photo by Jason LaVeris via Getty

Bombshell revelations have emerged against director Bryan Singer, best known for helming films such including Bohemian Rhapsody, The Usual Suspects, Superman Returns, and four of the X-Men franchise. The claims center on Singer’s alleged sexual relationships with underage boys, many of whom allege abuse at the hands of the director.

Today, The Atlantic published an investigation comprised of interviews with more than 50 sources, including four men who claimed to have been raped or groomed by Singer when they were underage. (Some of the men interviewed requested anonymity from the publication, for fear of repercussions.)

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A man The Atlantic gave the pseudonym "Eric" told reporters that he had sex with Singer when he was 17 during a 1997 party at his house, even though he was then under the age of consent. Another man, “Andy”, said he also had sex with Singer in 1997, when he was 15. “Bryan knew I was 15,” Andy told the publication.

Perhaps the most disturbing account took place whilst Singer was filming Apt Pupil at a LA middle school in the spring of 1997. Victor Valdovinos, who was then in the seventh grade, told The Atlantic that Singer singled him out during production and asked him to meet him in a locker room during the filming of a pivotal shower scene in the film. (The shower scene would subsequently become the subject of a lawsuit, after five minors who were extras in the film claimed they were coerced by crew on set into stripping naked, when they’d been led to believe only partial nudity was required.)

Valdovinos, who was 13 at the time, told The Atlantic that Singer asked him to strip and put a towel around his waist. He was then brought into a private locker room, where Singer made small talk with him before putting his hand under Valdovinos’ towel, and touching his genitalia. ““I was frozen. Speechless,” he said. “He came back to where I was in the locker room throughout the day to molest me.” By his own account, Valdovinos’ life fell apart after the assault: He dropped out of his school, got his girlfriend pregnant at age 16, and lost his place on the football team. Andy also told the publication his life derailed after his encounters with Singer: ““I sort of wonder, if I’d never met Marc [MarcCollins-Rector, a known associate of Singer in the 90s who is a registered sex offender] and then Bryan, if I would have ever got into the drugs.”

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Another man, who The Atlantic gave the name “Ben”, spoke about meeting Singer on LA’s party scene in the late 1990s. He described Singer as a predator who’d give young men copious amounts of alcohol and booze, before having sex with them. “I was a fat kid, and socially awkward…but then I was getting all this attention. It led me to believe that was the way it’s supposed to be—that the way to get attention is to be sexual.”

Allegations about Singer’s sexual relations with underage men have been public since at 2014, when a man called Michael Egan alleged that Singer raped him by a swimming pool in 1999, when he was 15. The case did not make it to court after inconsistencies were revealed in his account, although Egan did pass a polygraph and was found credible by a psychiatrist.

In 2014, a civil suit was filed against Singer in a California district court by a “John Doe No. 117” who claimed that he was sexually assaulted by him after the UK premiere of Superman Returns. In the complaint, John Doe said that Singer, alongside two other men, forced him onto the bed, took off his clothes, made him ejaculate, before Singer attempted to have anal sex with him.

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As more and more allegations against Singer have begun to emerge, his position in Hollywood has been shaken. Singer was removed from Bohemian Rhapsody by the studio three weeks before the end of filming, and he wasn’t mentioned in any of the acceptance speeches that accompanied the film’s win earlier this month at the Emmys. But he’s not entirely on the outs: Singer signed on to direct comic-book adaptation Red Sonja late 2018 for a reported $10 million. Red Sonja’s subject matter? How a survivor of sexual assault, Sonja, achieves vengeance after being raped.