UPDATE: 12:40 p.m. ― Ed Westwick flatly denied having raped actress Kristina Cohen in a message posted to Twitter and Instagram on Tuesday.
“I do not know this woman. I have never forced myself in any manner, on any woman. I certainly have never committed rape,” he wrote.
PREVIOUSLY:
Actress Kristina Cohen said in a lengthy Facebook post shared Monday that “Gossip Girl” star Ed Westwick raped her three years ago.
Cohen, 27, said that she met Westwick, 30, through her boyfriend at the time, a producer who goes unnamed in the post. The incident occurred when the couple went over to actor’s house one night, she wrote.
Cohen was taken aback when Westwick allegedly suggested “we should all fuck,” but her boyfriend convinced her to stay for dinner to avoid making their host uncomfortable. At Westwick’s suggestion, Cohen said she then retired to the guest room for a nap while her boyfriend tried to smooth things over.
“So I went and laid down in the guest room where I eventually fell asleep, I was woken up abruptly by Ed on top of me, his fingers entering my body. I told him to stop, but he was strong,” Cohen wrote. “I fought him off as hard as I could but he grabbed my face in his hands, shaking me, telling me he wanted to fuck me. I was paralyzed, terrified. I couldn’t speak, I could no longer move. He held me down and raped me.”
“It was a nightmare, and the days following weren’t any better,” she added.
A representative for Westwick did not immediately return HuffPost’s request for comment.
Cohen said that her boyfriend blamed her for the assault and cautioned against speaking out against Westwick for the sake of her career.
Over the years, she has appeared in a handful of minor roles in projects including “Californication” and “The Middle,” as well as the web series “Ladies Like Us.” Westwick rose to fame on the hit CW soap playing bad boy Chuck Bass, a character with his own history of sexual assault. He now stars on the BBC Two series “White Gold.”
Cohen said the wave of sexual assault allegations leveled against powerful men in Hollywood pushed her to come forward with her story now. She hopes to change the public perception of men like Westwick and encourage other victims of sexual assault never to blame themselves.
“I’m sickened to see men like Ed respected in such a public way. Interviewed by prestigious platforms such as the Oxford Union Society at Oxford University, where he was honored as one of their ‘People who Shape our World,’” Cohen wrote. “How does this end? Men like Ed using fame and power to rape and intimidate but then continue through the world collecting accolades.”
“I hope that my stories and the stories of others help to reset and realign the toxic environments and power imbalances that have created these monsters,” she concluded.
Read Cohen’s full post on Facebook.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.