sexual misconduct

Zoë Kravitz Says a Director Sexually Harassed Her When She Was 19

Zoë Kravitz. Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

In Zoë Kravitz’s new Rolling Stone cover(which recreates her mother Lisa Bonet’s iconic shoot for the same magazine), the actress recalls being sexually harassed by a director, whom she won’t name, at the start of her career. “I definitely worked with a director who made me very uncomfortable. I was young — maybe 19 or 20 — and we were on location, staying at the same hotel. And it was full-on: ‘Can I come inside your room?’ Just totally inappropriate,” she says. “And then he’d do things like come to the makeup trailer and touch my hair. Or say, ‘Let me see your costume — turn around?’ It’s just never OK for someone to do that. Especially when they’re in a position of power.”

Kravitz also shares her thoughts on another man who abused his power: Bill Cosby. Bonet famously starred in the Cosby Show but was fired after she became pregnant with Zoë — Bonet now refers to him in RS as “Mr. Righteous” — who agrees with her mother that his energy was always bad. “Her and him never got along. Whether he was attracted to her, or he resented her having a mind of her own, she always got a weird vibe from him. A dark vibe,” she says. Kravitz recently found a chilling photo of Cosby holding her when she was a baby on the Cosby set. “It’s actually a really disturbing picture,” she says. “His face is not a sweet face at all. It’s kind of creepy.”

Elsewhere in the profile, Kravitz reveals she’s engaged to actor Karl Glusman (it was a very chill at-home proposal) and talks trying and failing to get Big Little Lies to acknowledge Bonnie’s race. “I wish they’d had Reese’s character say, ‘His hot black wife.’ That’s real! But people are scared to go there. If we’re making art and trying to dissect the human condition, let’s really do that.”

Zoë Kravitz Says a Director Sexually Harassed Her at 19