John Oliver called out Dustin Hoffman Monday night in front of a live audience over sexual harassment allegations against the actor.
It happened at the 20th Anniversary for Barry Levinson’s “Wag the Dog” in Manhattan during a panel discussion with Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and director Barry Levinson, according to The Washington Post. (RELATED: Dustin Hoffman Accused Of Sexually Harassing A 17-Year-Old Girl)
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“This is something we’re going to have to talk about because … it’s hanging in the air,” the moderator Oliver shared, referencing allegations made recently by Anna Graham Hunter who accused Hoffman of sexually harassing her multiple times on the set of a 1985 TV movie when she was a 17-year-old intern.
“It’s hanging in the air?” Hoffman responded. “From a few things you’ve read, you’ve made an incredible assumption about me.”
“You’ve made the case better than anyone else can. I’m guilty,” he added sarcastically. “I still don’t know who this woman is. I never met her; if I met her, it was in concert with other people.”
The talk show host then slammed Hoffman’s response to the allegations when he said that he had “the utmost respect for women and feel terrible that anything I might have done could have put her in an uncomfortable situation. I am sorry. It is not reflective of who I am.”
“It’s ‘not reflective of who I am’– it’s that kind of response to this stuff that pisses me off,” Oliver snapped back. “It is reflective of who you were. If you’ve given no evidence to show it didn’t [happen] then there was a period of time for a while when you were a creeper around women. It feels like a cop-out to say ‘well this isn’t me.’ Do you understand how that feels like a dismissal?”
“Do you believe this stuff that you read?” Hoffman then asked.
“Yes,” Oliver replied. “Because there’s no point in [an accuser] lying.”
“Well, there’s a point in her not bringing this up for 40 years,” Hoffman responded.
“Oh, Dustin,” Oliver remarked.
“I can’t leave certain things unaddressed,” the TV host said. “The easy way is not to bring anything up. Unfortunately that leaves me at home later at night hating myself. ‘Why the … didn’t I say something? No one stands up to powerful men.'”
“Am I the powerful man?” Hoffman replied. “Keep a kind of open mind if you can, John.”
“I’m trying,” Oliver shared.
“Well, I’m trying harder than you are,” Hoffman replied.