Ant-Man's Michael Douglas Denies Sexual Allegations Before The Story Goes Public

Now that the whole world is finally taking sexual harassment allegations seriously, any kind of accusation regarding the matter has resulted in swift and immediate action. Michael Douglas found out that a story was going to be run about sexual allegations towards him, so the Ant-Man actor was quick to release a statement before the piece came out.

Speaking with Deadline, Douglas noticed that these stories are usually "She Said, He's Gone," so when his attorney told him that The Hollywood Reporter was going to run a story on this, he wanted to talk to the reporter. While he admits to some of the lesser accusations, like spouting "colorful language" and that he spoke raunchily in front of her, Douglas states that the final two lobbied against him - masturbating in front of the accuser and blackballing her from getting another job - is completely false.

Here is an excerpt from the lengthy interview:

"It pertains to me but I'm also getting a sense of how it reflects in our culture, and what is going on today. I see it as a cautionary tale. Right before the holidays in December, the day my son got early acceptance to the college he wants to go to, when we were all ecstatic, I got a message from my attorney that The Hollywood Reporter wanted to do a story about an employee that worked for me approximately 32 years ago. She claims that, One, I used colorful language in front of her, not at her, but that I used colorful language. Two, she claims that in conversations I had in front of her, on the phone, that I spoke raunchily, or dirtily with friends of mine, in private conversations. I fired her eventually, for the work she was doing, but Three, she claims that I blackballed her from the industry and stopped her from getting another job…….Finally, masturbating in front of her? I don't know where to begin. This is a complete lie, fabrication, no truth to it whatsoever. The reporter told me, ‘she did say that you never harassed her, never touched her,' and I said…okay. So I didn't know where this comes from."

Douglas says he supports the #metoo movement but feels like a story like this could set it back. He claims that he has no skeletons in his closet, aside from the use of colorful language, and is confident in his innocence. The veteran actor also didn't want to wait for the story to come out and be painted as a villain to the public, so he decided to come clean right away. For his sake, we can only hope that he's right since we don't really want to see any other incident like this.

Michael Douglas will be in this year's Ant-Man and The Wasp, which comes out on July 6.

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