Jodie Foster Opens Up About Surviving Sexual Abuse in Hollywood: “I Was Too Dangerous to Touch”

In a new interview with NPR, Jodie Foster opened up about how she avoided s**** abuse in Hollywood as a teen. The two-time Oscar winner credits her early career success and the influence she gained at a young age for keeping her safe.

Foster explained that being nominated for an Oscar at just 12 years old for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver gave her power in the industry that other young actors didn’t have. “I’ve really had to examine that, like, how did I get saved? There were microaggressions, of course,” she said.

“Anybody who’s in the workplace has had misogynist microaggressions. That’s just a part of being a woman, right? But what kept me from having those bad experiences, those terrible experiences? And what I came to believe … is that I had a certain amount of power by the time I was, like, 12. So by the time I had my first Oscar nomination, I was part of a different category of people that had power and I was too dangerous to touch. I could’ve ruined people’s careers or I could’ve called ‘Uncle,’ so I wasn’t on the block.”

Foster added that her personality also helped protect her. “It also might be just my personality, that I am a head-first person and I approach the world in a head-first way. It’s very difficult to emotionally manipulate me because I don’t operate with my emotions on the surface. Predators use whatever they can in order to manipulate and get people to do what they want them to do. That’s much easier when the person is younger, when the person is weaker, when a person has no power. That’s precisely what predatory behavior is about: using power in order to diminish people, in order to dominate them.”

Although Foster avoided abuse herself, she has been a mentor and role model for other actors facing harassment. Natalie Portman revealed on the Smartless podcast last year that Foster reached out to her after Portman spoke publicly about being s****** as a child actor. “I did a speech at a Women’s March about being s***** as a young actress, and she reached out to me after that, and we talked and it was amazing,” Portman said. “She’s still a role model.”

Like Foster, Portman started acting as a child, landing her breakthrough role in Léon: The Professional at age 11. She said projecting seriousness on set helped protect her from potential predators. “That kind of projection of seriousness protected me in a way,” Portman said. “’Cause I feel like it was almost a warning signal like, ‘Oh, don’t do s**** to her.’ Not that anyone ever, you know, deserves it or is asking for it. But I felt like that was my unconscious way of doing it.”

Foster’s insight sheds light on how power and awareness can help young actors navigate the challenges of Hollywood.

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