{"id":797370,"date":"2026-08-01T12:32:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797370\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T12:32:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T12:32:17","slug":"jared-leto-sexual-assault-doc-team-wants-to-continue-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797370\/","title":{"rendered":"Jared Leto sexual assault doc: Team wants to continue investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After a year and half of research and interviews, the BBC on Wednesday aired an explosive new documentary in which multiple women accused Oscar winner Jared Leto<\/a> of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

Directed by Alice McShane, \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret,\u201d which debuted Wednesday in the U.K., revealed new claims of criminal sexual conduct by the 54-year-old actor and musician from four women, including a possible instance of statutory rape in California. In the film, a total of 10 women recount allegations of sexual assault, along with inappropriate text messages, phone calls and behavior that occurred from 2002 to 2016. Leto has denied the allegations.<\/p>\n

To ensure the integrity of the documentary, the hour-long program was not announced ahead of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything came out at once,\u201d says producer Jessica Sartenaer, speaking from London over Zoom alongside McShane on Friday morning. \u201cThat was all very much part of the strategy because we didn\u2019t want to leak anything before the investigation came out.\u201d<\/p>\n

McShane began working on the film after Los Angeles-based DJ Allie Teilz reshared in April 2025 her Facebook post from 2012 in which she accused Leto of trying to \u201cforce himself\u201d onto her backstage at a concert. Teilz described the actor as \u201cHollywood\u2019s most persistent predator.\u201d About 40 women contacted Teilz with their own allegations, according to Sartenaer. In June 2025, weekly newsletter Air Mail published accusations<\/a> of impropriety against Leto by nine women, which he denied.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cI began ringing around trying to find the women who\u2019d written into Allie,\u201d McShane says. \u201cWhen I was speaking to women, I realized there were other journalists on the trail. So I did think there was going to be something published relatively quickly, which we can\u2019t compete with because we have a whole different set of considerations. It takes a lot longer to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

Social media was the main resource for finding people willing to speak on the record. The filmmakers say they discovered more than 120 separate allegations online.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t necessarily mean these are all women who want to speak about their experiences,\u201d McShane says. \u201cThey\u2019ve posted anonymously for a reason. It was a lot of hours spent digging through hundreds of people from across Leto\u2019s life and career \u2014 people who had worked with the band, people in his acting life, his fashion life. We had an enormous spreadsheet. It was a really in-depth process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, 10 women agreed to be interviewed on camera. The filmmakers offered each various options of anonymity depending on their level of comfort. None are completely anonymous, although only three used their real names. All of their real voices are heard, which McShane says is unusual.<\/p>\n

Sartenaer adds, \u201cThe courage it takes to come forward and come up against a powerful man like Leto is immeasurable. It\u2019s absolutely incredible what these women have done, and the anonymity decision is a very personal one. Right away, [the women had] this gut instinct about the level of anonymity that they would like.\u201d<\/p>\n

McShane drew on her past experiences, including making the 2023 Channel 4 documentary \u201cRussell Brand: In Plain Sight,\u201d which investigated comedian Russell Brand\u2019s treatment of women<\/a>, to guide the interview process.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really learn from a duty-of-care perspective how to best look after the women,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s always this balance of wanting to investigate the story, but also understanding these are people who have gone through incredibly painful experiences and they\u2019re sharing very personal things with you. You never want to push. They are in control. You can never make these things happen. It has to come from the women.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial investigation began in London and the filmmakers visited Los Angeles twice in the months that followed. The first interview was with a woman named Alex last fall. In the documentary, the former model recalls being invited to a 30 Seconds to Mars concert at London\u2019s O2 in 2013 (Leto is the band\u2019s frontman). She says his female assistant then brought her to an afterparty at the members\u2019 club Shoreditch House. Although she was 19 at the time, she told Leto she was 17 to protect herself. She says the musician, then 41, replied, \u201cAge is just a number, and, anyway, we\u2019re in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex was sent by Leto\u2019s assistant to another afterparty at a nearby hotel, but Leto was the only one there, she says. Alex asked for a phone charger and cash for a taxi home, but was denied. When she asked if she could crash on the sofa in the hotel room, she says Leto threatened to rape her.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight from when we started investigating and started hearing from these women, [we were] noticing these patterns of behavior,\u201d McShane says. \u201c[Alex] is an extraordinary communicator. The women we were speaking to, all of them, are amazing storytellers, and resolute about telling their stories. Each time we spoke to somebody it reinforced the importance of getting it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jared <\/p>\n

An explosive new documentary revealed new claims of criminal sexual conduct by actor and musician Jared Leto.<\/p>\n

(Pascal Le Segretain \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Sartenaer says Leto\u2019s seeming fixation with women of a young age was something \u201cwe were interested in investigating right off because of the pattern we noticed in the reposts from Allie Teilz.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them did mention that they were teenagers at the time of the alleged offenses,\u201d she says. \u201cWe knew that was a thread to follow right from the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

One woman, named Clara in the documentary, spoke about having sex with Leto for the first time when she was 17 and he was 34. The encounter took place at his home in California. In the film, she describes having a conversation with Leto about the age of consent in the state. \u201cHe just kind of shrugged it off, like it wasn\u2019t a huge concern for him,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

As the documentary points out, the age of consent in California is 18. An adult having sex with someone underage can constitute statutory rape. The filmmakers can\u2019t comment on the law or whether there will be any legal repercussions for Leto. However, Mike Radford, executive producer at BBC Current Affairs, says what distinguishes \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret\u201d from prior investigations is that the film showcases alleged criminal conduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a different level of potential wrongdoing,\u201d Radford says, speaking on the phone from London. \u201cFrom that point of view, it becomes a more serious story, and it goes beyond misunderstanding to something more worrying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filmmakers sent a \u201clengthy right of reply\u201d letter to Leto and gave him two weeks to respond. They followed up several times with his team to no avail. It wasn\u2019t until after the documentary aired that Leto denied the allegations in a statement, which was shared Wednesday with The Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life,\u201d he said. \u201cThese claims are absolutely and categorically false.\u201d<\/p>\n

The documentary combines the interviews with reenactments and archival footage. Sartenaer says they had a \u201cwealth of material\u201d to pull from.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is so much content about him,\u201d McShane adds. \u201cAnd he\u2019s so overtly sexual on the public stage. We\u2019ve got examples in the film of him, like when he\u2019s in the press room at the Oscars. Everything is packed with innuendo. There are examples where he\u2019s being very inappropriate with young women on the stage. All of that placed next to these interviews can be so chilling and there were countless examples of that available to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The filmmakers worked with a limited budget and a small team of three: McShane, Sartenaer and cinematographer Theo Tennant. In total, they spent a year and half working full time on \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Two <\/p>\n

Alice McShane, left, and Jessica Sartenaer interview entertainment journalist Maureen Ryan for \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Theo Tennant \/ BBC)<\/p>\n

The biggest challenge was the fact that \u201cHollywood is an impenetrable world,\u201d Sartenaer says. The documentary features interviews with two people who worked with Leto speaking completely anonymously, but they were difficult to find and get on the record.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really took a very, very long time to have a breakthrough on the insider front [and] to actually get people to start talking with us,\u201d Sartenaer says. \u201cHollywood is such a precarious place and it\u2019s difficult to get into Hollywood, and I think once people are in, it\u2019s probably a terrifying prospect. One foot stepped wrong could see them catapulted out of it again. We saw that nervousness in trying to speak with people. There\u2019s a real culture of secrecy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite that, there are hopes that \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret\u201d will encourage other potential victims to speak out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe investigation is ongoing,\u201d Sartenaer says. \u201cWhat these women have done by coming forward [is commendable]. We think their courage will encourage other women to speak their truth, whoever it is about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radford says the BBC is continuing its investigation into the allegations surrounding Leto.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would hope that should our investigation continue we would have enough material to make a subsequent documentary,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re not working on a documentary now because I\u2019m not commissioned to do so. But it is our intention.\u201d<\/p>\n

At present, the BBC doesn\u2019t have plans to air \u201cJared Leto: Hollywood\u2019s Dark Secret\u201d in the U.S. It was offered to the U.S. market while in production, according to Radford, but not picked up for distribution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no legal reason it isn\u2019t airing there,\u201d Radford says. \u201cIn fact, the legal threat is much greater in the U.K. because the libel laws are tougher in the U.K. So there was no fear around putting it out in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

McShane and Sartenaer have been heartened by the immediate response to the documentary. But they also hope the momentum will continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope we keep seeing the reverberations and I hope the conversation doesn\u2019t die,\u201d McShane says. \u201cTen years ago at the height of #MeToo this would have really punched through. The general outrage has cooled a little bit when stories of this nature are published. But we hope the conversations stay strong because it\u2019s really important people keep talking about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Resources for survivors of sexual assault <\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual violence, you can find support using RAINN\u2019s National Sexual Assault Hotline. Call (800) 656-HOPE or visit online.rainn.org<\/a> to speak with a trained support specialist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a year and half of research and interviews, the BBC on Wednesday aired an explosive new documentary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[338408,338410,1129,88,2695,94125,1506,3381,6270,337674,1150,338411,338407,3590,338409,13546],"class_list":["post-797370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-alice-mcshane","tag-dark-secret","tag-documentary","tag-entertainment","tag-film","tag-filmmaker","tag-hollywood","tag-interview","tag-investigation","tag-leto","tag-london","tag-mike-radford","tag-multiple-woman","tag-people","tag-sartenaer","tag-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}