Over the years, celebrities have shared their stories about being pressured to do things they're not comfortable with in Hollywood, and now, it's Matthew Lawrence's turn. On an episode of the podcast he hosts with his brothers, Matthew said he refused to strip for a director, which may have cost him a major Marvel role in the process.
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Matthew spoke about the incident on his 'Brotherly Love' podcast.
While talking with brothers Joey and Andrew Lawrence, Matthew revealed that he once had a meeting with a "prominent" director in a hotel room that made him very uncomfortable.
"I 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 and said he needed to take Polaroids of me," he said.
If he did what he was told, a major door would have been opened for him.
According to Matthew, he was told that "if I did X, Y and Z, I would be the next Marvel character."
"I didn't do that, and my agency fired me, because I left this director's room," he said. "A lot of my other male friends have gone through [this] with both women and men in this industry."
This isn't the only time this has happened to him.
Matthew admitted that he had been "propositioned to get a major role" many times over the course of his career, and Joey added that it has happened to him, too, saying he had missed out on a lot of big parts when at a similar "crossroads" himself.
Though he did point out that it's far more common that women in Hollywood find themselves in these situations, Matthew is hoping to shed light on the fact that it also happens to men.
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He went on to emphasize that plenty of men have had these experiences.
"Men go through this as well, whether it’s another woman or another man in power. I think our society is less ready to hear that situation is going on with men than they are with women," he said.
Matthew pointed out that even Terry Crews is among the celebrity men who have revealed they've had experiences with sexual assault in the entertainment industry, and yet it's something many people still don't talk about.
Good for Matthew for speaking his truth.
Though it couldn't have been easy for him to come forward about this kind of thing, it just goes to show that it can happen to anyone. Although Matthew may never know where his career could have led him if things had gone differently, it sounds like he's secure in the choices he's made along the way — even the ones he never should have had to make.
