Matthew Lawrence said he believes he was dropped by an agency after refusing to meet the demands of a prominent Hollywood director who asked him to take off his clothes during a hotel room meeting.
The Boy Meets World actor detailed his experiences on a recent episode of the Brotherly Love Podcast, with his brothers Joey and Andrew Lawrence while talking about the #MeToo movement and the harassment that men and women face in the industry.
“Not a lot of guys, in my opinion, have come out and talked about this in the industry,” he started off by saying. “Now granted, I’d say it’s probably a third of what women go through … [but] men go through this as well.”
Lawrence went on to explain that there have been times in his life when he’s “been propositioned to get a huge role” by people in power.
He recalled a time when he “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.”
He added that the director, which he did not name, told him “he needed to take Polaroids of me and then if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next Marvel character.” Lawrence said he ended up leaving the hotel room, which he believes is why his agency, which he also did not name, fired him.
The Mrs. Doubtfire actor said there’s a huge “double standard” in the industry, using Terry Crews as an example. In 2017, Crew accused WME agent Adam Venit of molesting him in 2016, with the actor alleging the agent had squeezed his genitals at a party. He later sued the agency and settled the lawsuit the following year, with Venit leaving WME.
Lawrence proceeded to say when the Brooklyn Nine-Nine actor opened up about his story, “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, actually.”
Joey Lawrence followed up, seconding his brother’s thoughts. “When those moments arose, and there were plenty … it was just a principal thing for me. I just wasn’t gonna do it,” he said. “I lost out on a lot of parts too. … And like you said, I know the guys that went on and did them and I don’t know what situations they were thrust into. I’m not gonna even speculate. But I know that it was set up in an infrastructure where that’s what was expected.”
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Lawrence’s rep for additional comment.