Ellen Page Says Brett Ratner Outed Her at 18 Years Old With a Homophobic Slur While Filming ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’

By Zack Sharf, IndieWire
Published Nov. 10, 2017, 2:44 p.m. ET

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Ellen Page has posted a powerful essay on her Facebook page in which she responds to the numerous sexual harassment and assault allegations taking place in Hollywood by revealing her own history with abusive directors, and admitting that she is ashamed of working with such alleged predators as Woody Allen. According to Page, Brett Ratner made a homophobic slur to her during the first day of filming on X-Men: The Last Stand, where Page was starring as Kitty Pryde, and therefore outed her to the cast and crew.

“‘You should fuck her to make her realize she’s gay.’ He said this about me during a cast and crew ‘meet and greet’ before we began filming, X Men: The Last Stand,” Page writes. “I was eighteen years old. He looked at a woman standing next to me, ten years my senior, pointed to me and said: ‘You should fuck her to make her realize she’s gay.’ He was the film’s director, Brett Ratner.”

Ratner was accused of sexual harassment by six women in a report published by the Los Angeles Times on November 1. Actress Natasha Henstridge told the newspaper that Ratner forced her to perform oral sex on him, while Olivia Munn revealed an encounter in which she brought food to Ratner’s trailer and he allegedly masturbated in front of her.

“I was a young adult who had not yet come out to myself. I knew I was gay, but did not know, so to speak. I felt violated when this happened,” Page writes of Ratner’s comment. “I looked down at my feet, didn’t say a word and watched as no one else did either. This man, who had cast me in the film, started our months of filming at a work event with this horrific, unchallenged plea. He ‘outed’ me with no regard for my well-being, an act we all recognize as homophobic.”

Page also reveals her own history battling sexual harassment in the industry. She says she was taken out to business dinner by a director when she was sixteen years old and he fondled her leg under the table. Months later, the actress says she was assaulted by a grip and was asked by a director to sleep with a man and tell him about it. “This is just what happened during my sixteenth year, a teenager in the entertainment industry,” she writes.

The actress starred in Woody Allen’s 2012 movie To Rome With Love, but it’s a choice she calls the “biggest regret” of her career. Allen has been accused of molesting his daughter, Dylan Farrow.

“I did a Woody Allen movie and it is the biggest regret of my career,” she writes. “I am ashamed I did this. I had yet to find my voice and was not who I am now and felt pressured, because ‘of course you have to say yes to this Woody Allen film.’ Ultimately, however, it is my choice what films I decide to do and I made the wrong choice. I made an awful mistake.”

Page was most recently seen in the big screen Flatliners remake. You can read her entire post by heading to her Facebook page here.