The director ‘said he needed to take Polaroids of me’, the actor claimed (Picture: Getty/Rex)
Matthew Lawrence, who soared to fame as a child actor in Mrs Doubtfire, has alleged that an award-winning director once asked him to take his clothes off for him in a hotel room.
In a new episode of his podcast, which he co-hosts with his real-life brothers Joey Lawrence and Andrew Lawrence, Matthew said that there have been ‘many times in my life where I’ve been propositioned’.
The now-43-year-old claimed that he was dropped from his agency because of an encounter he allegedly shared with a filmmaker.
‘I’ve lost my agency because I went to the hotel room – which I can’t believe they would send me to – of a very prominent Oscar award-winning director who showed up in his robe, asked me to take my clothes off and said he needed to take Polaroids of me,’ he said.
‘And then if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next “Marvel” character. I didn’t do that, and my agency fired me because I left this director’s room,’ he added, having gestured quote marks with his fingers when he said the word ‘Marvel’.
The actor, who was in his early teens when he starred opposite Robin Williams, Sally Field and Mara Wilson in Mrs Doubtfire, expressed his opinion that there’s a ‘double standard’ when it comes to discussions surrounding men and women who have suffered sexual harassment in the entertainment industry.
The actor starred in the 1990s sitcom Boy Meets World (Picture: David Becker/WireImage)
He brought up the case of Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Terry Crews, who said in 2017 that he was groped by a top Hollywood executive while attending an event.
‘This whole thing with Harvey Weinstein is giving me PTSD. Why? Because this kind of thing happened to ME,’ he tweeted at the time.
He added that he decided not to ‘take it further’ because he didn’t want to be ‘ostracised’, as the ‘predator has power and influence’.
Terry spoke out about his experience several years ago (Picture: Vivien Killilea/Getty Images)
Speaking on his Brotherly Love podcast, Matthew spoke about Terry’s story as he said: ‘Terry Crews comes out and says it; people are laughing at him. People don’t support him. They kick him out.
‘Why? Because he’s a man that represents masculinity, and I think our society is less ready to hear that situation going on with men than they are with women.’
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He continued: ‘Not a lot of guys in my opinion have come out and talked about this in the industry. There is also this same situation.
‘Now granted, it’s probably about a third of what women go through. The amount of men… Men go through this as well, whether it’s another woman or another man in power.’
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The director ‘said he needed to take Polaroids of me’, the actor claimed.
