harassment Los Angeles, Nov 14 (PTI) Writer Mark Schwahn has beenaccused of sexual harassment by the cast and crew of the 2003hit show "One Tree Hill".
Stars of The CW series, including actors Sophia Bush,Hilarie Burton and Bethany Joy Lenz released a joint statementin support of writer Audrey Wauchope, who took to Twitterabout harassment from the 51-year-old creator without naminghim.
The statement acquired by The Hollywood Reporter read,"Mark Schwahn's behaviour over the duration of the filming ofOne Tree Hill was something of an 'open secret'. Many of uswere, to varying degrees, manipulated psychologically andemotionally." The female members of the team said in the statement thatthey had soon realised they had to handle the situation ontheir own.
"We confided in each other. We set up safe spaces to talkabout his behaviour and how to handle it. To warn new womenwho joined our ranks. We understood that a lot of it wasorchestrated in ways that kept it out of sight for the studioback home."The women were told during the shooting of "One Tree..."that coming forward to talk about this culture would result inthe show's cancellation and many people would lose their jobs.
"This is not an appropriate amount of pressure to put onyoung girls. Many of us since have stayed silent publicly buthad very open channels of communication in our friend groupand in our industry...
"We have worked at taking our power back, making theconventions our own, and relishing in the good memories. Butthere is more work to be done," the statement further read.
Burton recently revealed Ben Affleck had groped her TRLin 2003, for which the actor later apologised. PTI RDSRDS.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.