Harassment on set

Molly Ringwald: “fair game” for men as a teenager

Molly Ringwald has now revealed in a podcast interview that she was "fair game" for older men on set as a young teen.(Bild: APA/Getty Images via AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Ivan Apfel)

She became a star as a teenager in the 1980s with films such as "The Breakfast Club" and "You Can Only Do That as an Adult". And like many of her peers, Molly Ringwald became the target of older men in Hollywood.

In the "WTF with Marc Maron" podcast, the now 56-year-old revealed: "You just can't be a young actress in Hollywood ... without older male predators around you."

"Weinstein is not the only one"
Although she was considered fair game by some men, Ringwald says she fared better than other young women in her industry. In her opinion, this was because she was very shy at the time and largely avoided the club scene as well as parties with other celebrities: "I wasn't raped by Harvey Weinstein because of this, which I'm grateful for. But Weinstein wasn't the only one."

She did not want to go into detail about what exactly happened to her with men "who took advantage of me".

"Sticking my tongue down my throat on set"
However, she had already done so in 2016 in a guest column in the "New Yorker" after the allegations against Weinstein arose. Ringwald wrote: "When I was 13, a 50-year-old crew member told me that he wanted to teach me how to dance. Then he pressed himself against me and had an erection."

Molly Ringwald in "Pretty in Pink"(Bild: Ronald Grant Archive / Mary Evans / picturedesk.com)

The next incident happened when she was 14: "A married movie director stuck his tongue down my throat on set." Ringwald wrote that she was only slowly discovering her sexuality at the time, "but there was an older guy around every corner who wanted to help speed up the process". And this despite the fact that Molly had very involved parents at the time, who did everything they could to protect their daughter from male "lechers": "I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't had her."

"Pronounced survival instinct"
As she got a little older, she found her way to protect herself as a young woman: "I was definitely in some very questionable situations. But I have a strong survival instinct and a super ego. This combination helped me to protect myself - but the situations often left me very shaken."