Kanye’s harassing Kim? Don’t act so surprised, he’s a misogynist and rape apologist

Relying on which era you had been born into, you may know the American actor and musician Jared Leto for a big selection of causes. I personally bear in mind him from Requiem for a Dream and absolutely the trauma that film prompted my 15-year-old self. Some can also affiliate Leto with Fight Club’s Angel Face character whereas for others his face brings forth undesirable flashbacks from the automotive crash that was his performance as Suicide Squad’s Joker. Heck, for those who’re not a lot of a film buff however know a factor or two about trend, then Leto can solely symbolize one factor to you: Gucci’s inventive director, Alessandro Michele’s most favoured muse, positioned even earlier than Harry Styles and Lana Del Rey on the pedestal.

However Leto ought to be identified for greater than his surprisingly long-lasting appearing profession or the identify he’s made for himself within the music business along with his band Thirty Seconds To Mars—fronted by the person himself alongside along with his brother Shannon Leto on drums. It’s time for Leto to be dragged for greater than his embarrassingly meme-worthy appearing try in House of Gucci—it’s about time we addressed the problematic behaviour he’s been displaying for years with out ever going through the repercussions. From accusations of paedophilia and rape to his weird cult island, we’ve gathered all of the receipts.

Thirty Seconds To Mars: a band that changed into a cult

When the Leto brothers shaped their rock band in 1998, they in all probability by no means imagined the fan base it will accumulate through the years. Thirty Seconds To Mars (also referred to as 30STM) went on to persistently get pleasure from sold-out excursions and even headline quite a few festivals. Identified for its energetic reside performances, fused parts from all kinds of genres, its use of philosophical and religious lyrics, idea albums, and experimental music, the band took a wierd flip when it began holding cult-like “summer season camps” for its viewers in 2015.

What appeared to have began as an ironic remark—in 2013, Leto advised The New York Times Magazine that it was “a joke, a response to journalists saying, ‘You’ve got such a cult following.’”—rapidly changed into a golden alternative to fleece their viewers. In August 2019, whereas on yet one more island retreat they’d held in Croatia for lots of of followers, Thirty Seconds To Mars tweeted, “Sure, it’s a cult,” sending the web into an comprehensible frenzy.

As reported by KQED in September 2019, the band’s followers “collectively discuss with themselves as ‘the Echelon’, and are a gaggle that appears overwhelmingly immersed not [just] in music nerd-dom, however relatively a extra basic type of love for the neighborhood surrounding the band.” I imply, simply watch 10 seconds of the fan-made video beneath and also you’ll get an concept of the megachurch vibes 30STM is giving off:

Oh, and in case you’re nonetheless not satisfied, remember the fact that the Echelon additionally appears more than pleased to don all-white uniforms and worship Leto’s ft. No biggie.

KQED additional famous, “Like many cults, the Echelon espouses an us vs. them mentality by way of the hashtag #YouWouldntUnderstand, a chorus Leto repeats usually. That concept has pushed supporters to ever extra fervent levels of devotion any time the band receives any diploma of criticism.”

Wanting into the band’s eyebrow-raising journeys, the publication revealed that its Camp Mars occasion, which was held between 7 and 9 September 2019, charged $999 for 2 nights of out of doors tenting, the place you needed to convey your individual tent and provides, Fyre Festival-style. The getaway additionally included daytime out of doors actions like rock-climbing and archery, plus two Thirty Seconds To Mars live shows, which the band known as ‘Church of Mars’. Dearer dorm choices had been additionally supplied, however the one method to sleep in an area that wasn’t shared with strangers was to pay $6,499 for a “VIP expertise.” Neat.

However that’s all effective, as a result of Leto declared the band “anti-greed” again in 2013. Whether or not the entire cult side surrounding 30STM began as a joke or not, what actually appears to be critical is how conscious Leto is of his followers’ dedication to him. This thirst for devotion has most undoubtedly performed a component within the worrying accusations the superstar has confronted each earlier than and after.

The business accused him of sexual assault and paedophilia

In Could 2018, within the midst of the #MeToo movement, Dylan Sprouse—yep, that’s the dual brother of Cole Sprouse who’s greatest identified for his position as Zack Martin on the Disney Channel sequence The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and its spin-off, The Suite Life on Deck—posted a tweet accusing Leto of sending DMs to each mannequin aged 18 to 25.

It rapidly escalated when Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn tweeted the next as a solution to Sprouse’s preliminary tweet, “He begins at 18 on the web?” Although the tweet has since been deleted, many netizens managed to seize a screenshot beforehand:

This was not the primary time Gunn tried talking up about Leto’s predatory behaviour both. In June of 2015, the director reportedly did a reside stream on the video app Periscope during which he made comparable remarks in regards to the actor’s habits of sleeping with underage women. SCREENSHOT didn’t handle to find a replica of the video in query.

In that very same yr, the New York Post reported that the 30STM frontman had been pursuing teen fashions. “He’s been approaching all the ladies and alluring them to his exhibits,” an nameless supply advised the paper. “He’s a serial texter. He’s continuously texting these 16- and 17-year-old women. It’s actually sort of creepy.”

For a person who brazenly held a contest during which the prize was a night sleeping in his bed and who fronts a band that’s identified to particularly request their fans get tattoos of their honour, to be accused of such issues ought to have been sufficient to finally lead the actor to face not less than some sort of consequence. And but, not a lot occurred to the cult chief in 2018, even after a worrying variety of allegations, some from years earlier than then, began showing on-line.

Oh, and so did his personal followers

Although the article has since been cleaned from the web, in July 2022, popular culture author for the now-vanished media criticism website Contemptor, Evangeline Van Houten, made some waves for her piece titled One other Cosby? A Reminder That A number of Ladies Have Accused Jared Leto Of Sexual Assault. In it, the journalist collected a number of confronting allegations of sexual misconduct from followers of 30STM.

A lot of victims, as younger as 15, described having intercourse with Leto and a number of the allegations steered the singer acted regardless of a scarcity of consent or continued even when requested to cease. One account acknowledged, “He was very pushy into coercing me to do sexual acts with him and he was fairly tough and forceful. As soon as he was unnecessarily tough and after I advised him it harm he didn’t cease—he by no means did something slowly or for my pleasure… And no, he by no means requested me if I used to be ever okay or comfy with something he needed to do, just because he’s not the particular person to care.”

The 50-year-old actor by no means tried to reply to such accusations, and let’s be sincere, it by no means appeared like he actually needed to, particularly since barely anybody even made the hassle to make clear his alleged predatory behaviour. A Reddit thread primarily based on the article talked about above contains many extra surprising accounts, in case you’re questioning precisely what number of victims we’re right here.

In 2014, a Star Magazine print issue featured an interview with former grownup movie star Vicki Marie Taylor claiming that, again when Leto dated Cameron Diaz, she and three different strip dancers had been invited to a post-concert get-together one evening in April 2002.

“The opposite women and I stripped all the way down to bikinis and frolicked with Jared and the band backstage,” Taylor advised Star. “After some time, Jared invited me onto his tour bus. His brother, Shannon, the band’s drummer, was already on it and the three of us had been the one folks there. I gave Jared a lap dance for only a minute, however then he requested me to do the identical for his brother, who was sitting on a sofa. As I began to bounce for Shannon, Jared all of the sudden grabbed me across the throat from behind and stated to me, ‘I can attain pure sexual enjoyment in 30 seconds simply by trying into your eyes’. Clearly, it was sort of a bizarre state of affairs.”

She went on to say that Leto then sat again down and watched Taylor lap dance his brother for ten minutes till a roadie introduced it was time for them to go away for his or her subsequent gig.

The web is house to many (many, many) extra accounts of Leto allegedly sexually assaulting (typically underage) victims. Nevertheless, some web customers have steered that such on-line accusations are to not be taken significantly as a result of the truth that they by no means really advanced into sexual assault and rape police instances—a really silly and uneducated means of trying on the state of affairs.

What number of occasions do we have now to say it? The concern of not being believed makes it even tougher for victims to return ahead, so think about how horrifying it should be for anybody going through Leto and his considerably invincible but invisible crew of legal professionals. Virtually 90 per cent of sexual assault survivors will by no means go to the police.

And it’s not solely that victims are nervous folks received’t consider them, additionally they fear they are going to face horrific repercussions for coming ahead with their story—whether or not personally, professionally or from the perpetrator themselves—particularly in the event that they go on to report the assault to involved authorities. Seeing how a lot of an skilled Leto is at emptying his followers’ pockets, it’s not onerous to consider the numerous choices he has beneath his belt when making an attempt to silence his victims.