{"id":219081,"date":"2025-10-17T01:32:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/219081\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T01:32:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T01:32:07","slug":"kevin-costner-loses-round-in-stuntwomans-sexual-harassment-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/219081\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Costner Loses Round in Stuntwoman’s Sexual Harassment Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe stuntwoman who alleges she was ambushed with an unscripted rape scene directed by Kevin Costner<\/a> on the set of his western epic Horizon 2 can proceed with nine of the 10 claims in her sexual harassment and hostile work environment lawsuit<\/a> against Costner, a judge ruled Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\tCostner had previously asked the court to dismiss the entire lawsuit. He claimed the movie is an expressive work, protected by the First Amendment, and that the stuntwoman, Devyn LaBella, had failed to adequately allege that the scene in question was added without proper notice or appropriate safeguard measures. After hearing arguments for nearly an hour, the judge sided with LaBella, finding that she deserves more time to conduct discovery and continue pursuing her claims. The next hearing in the case is set for December.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is a lot to be said about this decision and the rest of the case, Hollywood, and its movies. A lot doesn\u2019t fall exactly into the labor code, and there are carve-outs for exactly the creative process we are discussing. But at this point, this early in the case \u2026 there is sufficient evidence,\u201d Los Angeles County Judge Jon R. Takasugi said, issuing his ruling from the bench.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m very grateful for the outcome,\u201d LaBella, 34, tells Rolling Stone when leaving the courthouse Thursday with her lawyers, Dan Stormer and Kate McFarlane. \u201cWe lost on one claim and won on nine, so that\u2019s a victory,\u201d McFarlane says.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to the lawsuit, LaBella was a championship-winning gymnast who pivoted to acting and signed with a leading stunt agency in 2016. She later worked on the show Yellowjackets and the blockbuster movie Barbie before she was cast as the lead stunt double for actress Ella Hunt on Horizon 2 in 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaBella claims that on May 2, 2023, Hunt \u201cbecame visibly upset and walked off the set\u201d when Costner allegedly made a \u201csudden script change request,\u201d asking her to run through a scene where a character named Birke, played by actor Roger Ivens, would mount her character, Juliette, in the lead-up to a newly written, subsequent rape that would occur off-camera. After Hunt allegedly refused, LaBella was asked to \u201cstand in\u201d for Hunt without adequate explanation, the lawsuit states. LaBella claims she was not informed that Ivens \u201cwould mount her and violently pull her skirt up\u201d until he was \u201con top of her doing so.\u201d The stuntwoman says that the incident left her in shock and on the verge of tears, and alleges that when she reported it, she faced retaliation.<\/p>\n

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\n\tIn her filings, LaBella says she willingly stood in for Hunt a day earlier for the filming of a different, carefully scripted rape scene. She said the May 1 scene involved meticulous choreography, a closed set, and the presence of an intimacy coordinator. She claims the rehearsal on May 2 lacked the same safeguards and that the new script did not mention any contact whatsoever between Birke and Juliette inside the small covered wagon where the scene was shot.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the hearing on Thursday, Costner\u2019s lawyers, Martin Singer and T. Wayne Harman, pushed back. They said the script made clear that the May 2 scene was leading up to a rape that would happen off-camera because it called for the Juliette character to mouth the word, \u201cNo.\u201d They said LaBella\u2019s entire job on the film was to block, rehearse, and perform the scenes that Hunt did not perform due to the physicality involved. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was no thrusting, no gyrating, no simulated sets, none of that, OK?\u201d Harman argued, referring to the May 2 rehearsal. \u201c[Ivens] starts to grab at her dress. Now, she\u2019s wearing 20 to 22 yards of fabric, right? This is the 1800s, so they wore pantaloons and eight layers of clothes,\u201d Harman continued. \u201cHe grabs the skirt and starts to drag it up to her knee, swings his leg over, and he\u2019s now on all fours, on top of her. That\u2019s the shot. He\u2019s not grinding on her. There\u2019s no thrusting, no simulated sex. \u2026. This was the foretelling of a rape that happens off-screen, that the audience never sees.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tHarman said there was \u201cno evidence\u201d to show that \u201can objectively reasonable person in [LaBella\u2019s] position would find the rehearsal of a single shot so offensive that it would interfere with her work performance.\u201d LaBella\u2019s lawyers disagreed.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[LaBella] has never objected to a scene like this before,\u201d MacFarlane argued, saying her client supports the creative process, so long as it follows the rules. \u201cShe knew that this particular scene on May 2nd was a problem, that there were violations of the contract, there was a violation of the law, and she was unsafe, and she was traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMcFarlane said Costner and his team recognized the need for an intimacy coordinator on May 1, even though that scripted rape happened off-camera as well. A screenshot of the call sheet for the May 1 scene, included in the complaint, stated the set would be closed. In its short summary of the scene, it said a different actor playing a character named \u201cSig\u201d would wrestle Juliette onto her wagon bed. Sig would then mount Juliette with his hand \u201cclamped over her mouth\u201d before he snuffed the lantern. The call sheet for the subsequent May 2 scene did not mention Birke, played by Ivens, entering the wagon. Instead, it said Sig would again enter the wagon and pull a gun out of Juliette\u2019s hands.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKevin Costner admits in his declaration<\/a> that both the May 1st scene and the May 2nd scene were violent scenes building up to and foretelling an actual rape,\u201d McFarlane argued Thursday. \u201cThe crux of Ms. LaBella\u2019s claims is not about the content of these scenes. It\u2019s about the lack of protocols followed on day two. And that\u2019s extremely important.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the end, Costner and his lawyers managed to get one claim dismissed on Thursday. The judge ruled that LaBella had failed to show \u201cminimal merit\u201d on her allegation that Costner \u201cdemanded\u201d she participate in the scene, in violation of a law called the Bane Act. \u201cPlaintiff does not identify anything Costner, or any other individual, said to her that would constitute \u2018threats, intimidation, or coercion\u2019 of the kind contemplated by the Bane Act,\u201d the judge wrote in his final ruling.<\/p>\n

\n\tLaBella\u2019s lawsuit will face another hurdle when the judge considers a separate challenge known as a demurrer in December. In his declaration filed in August, Costner called LaBella\u2019s lawsuit \u201cdeeply disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cThese allegations are so patently false I can only assume that the purpose was to use this sensationalistic language to embarrass and damage me and the Horizon movies on an ongoing basis in order to gain a massive and unjustified payday,\u201d Costner wrote in his filing. \u201cEqually as bad, having to read about and address allegations I know to be false involving the words \u2018rape\u2019 and \u2018assault\u2019 has been an absolute nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCostner, 70, was sued along with the companies behind his planned, four-film Horizon movie franchise. The first installment, Horizon: An American Saga \u2013 Chapter 1, premiered in June 2024 and pulled in a reported $11 million during its opening weekend, making it a box office disappointment. Horizon 2 was scheduled to be released a few months later, but it was paused after the first film failed to perform and currently has no release date, according to The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stuntwoman who alleges she was ambushed with an unscripted rape scene directed by Kevin Costner on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,7882,19292,134,70589],"class_list":{"0":"post-219081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-controversy","12":"tag-courts-and-crime","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-kevin-costner"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}