Jared Leto Accused of Criminal Sexual Conduct by Four Women in BBC Documentary

Jared Leto is facing a wave of new allegations after four women told a BBC documentary that he engaged in criminal sexual conduct with them when they were teenagers. The claims surfaced in "Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret," which premiered Wednesday and marks the most extensive public accounting yet of misconduct allegations that have trailed the actor and musician for years.

The four women's accounts, as recounted in the documentary, describe a range of alleged incidents. One woman said Leto sexually assaulted her in a motel bathroom when she was 17 years old. A second woman, who was 19 at the time, said Leto threatened her with sexual assault after she found herself alone with him in a hotel room. A third woman alleged she had sex with Leto in California while she was 17, an act that would meet the legal definition of statutory rape under state law. A fourth woman said Leto groomed her and made repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16, alleging he exploited his fame to do so.

The documentary extends well beyond the four women alleging criminal conduct, featuring testimony from 10 women in total, nine of whom are speaking publicly about their experiences with Leto for the first time. Collectively, the women describe encounters spanning from 2002 to 2016, a period during which Leto, now 54, was in his thirties and forties.

The allegations against Leto are not new, though the documentary represents their broadest public airing to date. Los Angeles DJ Allie Teilz set off a wave of public claims last year when she alleged on social media that Leto had assaulted her when she was 17, a post that prompted additional women to come forward with their own accounts. Air Mail followed with a report last June detailing nine separate allegations, all of which Leto denied at the time.

Several of the women in the documentary describe alleged encounters with Leto in cities around the world, often tied to his career as frontman of Thirty Seconds to Mars. One woman said an associate of Leto's approached her backstage at a 2006 concert when she was 17, taking down her phone number on the musician's behalf. He was 34 at the time. She said she later had sex with him at his California home and that he asked her to address him using a paternal nickname, telling the BBC she felt pressured to either act younger than she was or adopt the role he wanted. She described herself as naive and unaware at the time of how unusual the situation was, saying only in hindsight did she grasp how troubling it had been, and she said Leto brushed aside her worries about the legal age of consent.

Another woman recounted meeting Leto at a music festival in 2005 when she was just 14. She said that when she asked him to autograph a T-shirt, he instead signed across her chest and made a crude comment about her body, then instructed his bodyguard to bring her backstage without asking whether she wanted to go.

Beyond the criminal allegations, five women featured in the documentary said they received phone calls from Leto that they described as strange and sexual in nature. Several said they were later asked to sign non-disclosure agreements by Leto's legal team. The film also includes interviews with two men who worked with Leto's band for years, both of whom said they were uncomfortable with how he interacted with teenage girls.

Leto, through his representatives, issued a denial. "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life…These claims are absolutely and categorically false."