Citing Paris prosecutors, Reuters and other news outlets are reporting that the French movie director Christophe Ruggia was arrested and taken into custody for questioning today over allegations he sexually assaulted a teen girl who was cast in one of his films nearly two decades ago. Read the rest
A mom in Brazil became concerned as she watched the viewing numbers on innocent backyard clip her daughter posted to YouTube suddenly climb hundreds of thousands of views. The child posted a video of herself and a friend playing in the family pool. YouTube's recommendation engine had been suggesting the video as recommended content to viewers who'd just watched other videos that contained sexually oriented video content. YouTube's AI sexualized her kid and pushed her image to pedophiles. This happens a lot, apparently. Read the rest
“YouTube is disabling all comments on videos featuring young children as it attempts to head off an organised ring of paedophiles who were using its site to trade clips of young girls in states of undress,” says the Guardian's Alex Hern. Read the rest
Today is R. Kelly's birthday. Today, news is breaking that the singer is under investigation in Georgia.
R. Kelly has been accused of abuse, predatory behavior, and pedophilia for decades. A new investigation has launched into charges he committed crimes against girls in Fulton County. Dream Hampton, executive producer of 'Surviving R. Kelly,' said it best. Read the rest
In 2007, Florida multimillionaire Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to two felony prostitution counts in a sweetheart deal that sent him to a private wing of a minimum security prison, with a work-release program that let him go to an off-site office for 12 hours a day, six days a week, for just over a year. Prosecutors knew of at least 36 underage survivors of sex crimes committed by Epstein, but none of them were notified of the deal (this silence is a breach of federal law), and they were subsequently smeared by Epstein's lawyers who accused them of being "gold diggers." Read the rest
On The Dr. Oz Show Thursday Nov. 2, former child actor Corey Feldman publicly outed Jon Grissom as molesting him in the 1980s. During the show, he called LAPD to turn in his abusers.
In the interview, he stated, "This guy -- on his MySpace page and his Facebook page -- has got pictures of me and Corey Haim. He still taunts it, and flaunts it.”
Grissom appeared in two films that Feldman starred in, License to Drive (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989).
Feldman is currently crowdfunding a film that would tell the story of his life:
People have long awaited a response from Corey as to what exactly happened in his childhood. In his book, Coreyography, Corey describes what happened but it isn't clear who exactly the predators are. The best way, he feels, in order to tell the whole story, is for Corey to come forward in the form of a film about his life. We are embarking on a dangerous and exciting journey to get to the bottom of the truth. However in doing so there are great security risks.
Previously: Barbara Walters tells Corey Feldman "you're damaging an entire industry" when he warns of Hollywood abuse Read the rest
Before we knew him as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's blockbuster Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Elijah Wood was a child actor. In a recent interview with Britain's Sunday Times, Wood spoke out on sexual abuse of young actors in Hollywood, and says “a lot of vipers” roam the upper echelons of the entertainment biz, preying on naïvete and eagerness for fame.
“Clearly something major was going on in Hollywood. It was all organized. There are a lot of vipers in this industry, people who only have their own interests in mind,” he told the Times.
“There is darkness in the underbelly. What bums me about these situations is that the victims can’t speak as loudly as the people in power. That’s the tragedy of attempting to reveal what is happening to innocent people: they can be squashed, but their lives have been irreparably damaged.”
“If you’re innocent, you have very little knowledge of the world and you want to succeed,” he added. “People with parasitic interests will see you as their prey. What upsets me about these situations is that the victims can’t speak as loudly as the people in power.”
Wood is now 35. As a child, he performed with fellow child star alongside Macaulay Culkin in “The Good Son,” and had a part in the “Flipper” remake. He said his mother, Debra, protected him from predators back then, and he “never went to parties where that kind of thing was going on.” Read the rest
Trigger warning, obviously. Read the rest
The popular television series “Law & Order: SVU” will present its semifictionalized spin on the Duggar family of “19 Kids and Counting” and pedophilia impunity fame. Read the rest
