Ian McKellen: Women partly to blame for sex abuse scandal

Ian McKellen claims women should bear some of the blame for the entertainment world’s sexual abuse scandal.

Sir Ian McKellen says women must take responsibility for the entertainment world’s sex scandal. Picture: Getty Images.

British actor Sir Ian McKellen claims women should bear some of the blame for the sexual abuse scandal convulsing the entertainment world, because some trade sex for choice roles.

“People must be called out and it’s sometimes very difficult for victims to do that,’ the Lord Of The Rings star said in a talk at the Oxford Union recently.

“I hope we’re going through a period that will help to eradicate it altogether. But from my own experience, when I was starting acting in the early Sixties, the director of the theatre I was working at showed me some photographs he got from women who were wanting jobs ... some of them had at the bottom of their photograph ‘DRR’— directors’ rights respected. In other words, if you give me a job, you can have sex with me.

‘That was commonplace from people who proposed that they should be a victim. Madness. People have taken advantage of that and encouraged it and it absolutely will not do.”

Following his comments, people took to social media to criticise the award winning actor. One Twitter user wrote: “Sir Ian McKellen doesn’t know the different between consent, coercion and rape.”

Sir Ian McKellen doesn't know the difference between consent, coercion and rape. He needs to shut his stupid mouth.

— Egbert Smith (@RaeRaeAnnax) December 19, 2017

McKellen said he supports victims of sexual predators such as Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey coming forward. But the 78-year-old actor says he is concerned about the risk of false allegations.

“I assume nothing but good will come out of these revelations, even though some people get wrongly accused — there’s that side of it as well,” he said.

McKellen, who came out in 1988 to lobby for gay rights in the UK, and who worked briefly with the House of Cards actor at London’s Old Vic, described as “reprehensible” Spacey’s coming out after claims of sexual abuse against an under-age man were made against him.

“The circumstances in which he chose to do it are reprehensible because it linked alleged underage sex with a declaration of sexuality,” he said.