Porn star Tasha Reign says it is ‘outrageous’ that Stormy Daniels claims to stand up for women.
In a scathing article from The Daily Beast, Reign gives voice to something people in the adult business have long known: that Stormy Daniels doesn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone but herself.
Adult star Tasha Reign has accused porn star/director Stormy Daniels of failing to act when she groped on set.
According to Reign, a male crew member grabbed her buttocks from behind while making ‘sexual moaning noises’, during the filming of adult movie “The Set Up“, directed by Daniels. Reign says she burst into tears and told Daniels, 39, but nothing was done.
Reign has also accused Daniels of ‘making fun of the #MeToo movement’.
Marlow Stern writes in The Daily Beast:
On the morning of April 17, Stormy Daniels made a hotly-anticipated appearance on The View….
During the interview, Daniels claimed that, shortly after she first told her story to In Touch magazine back in 2011, a man approached her in a Las Vegas parking lot and threatened her life, urging her to “leave Trump alone” and “forget the story.” . . . Daniels explain[ed] that she didn’t go to the authorities seven years ago because she both feared for her safety and, as a newly-minted mother, didn’t want her husband at the time to learn about the supposed Trump tryst. She did, however, concede that, “I always feel like you should stand up for yourself and you should report it.”
On the other side of the country in sunny Los Angeles, Tasha Reign was tuning in to Daniels’ sit-down and couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“It’s very upsetting to see her speak like that and then I think, but I know the real you,” says Reign. “I was there. I saw what you did.”
What Reign says — in striking detail — occurred on the set of a movie Daniels was directing for Wicked Pictures in November 2017, is shocking.
“I was sexually assaulted by one of her crewmembers. He groped and grabbed me from behind… And she did not handle the situation appropriately, respectfully or professionally.”
Reign recalls:
“I’m fully clothed in my outfit, I’m standing and signing my paperwork, and all of a sudden I feel two hands from behind me grab my ass and make sexual moaning noises,” remembers Reign. “I . . . thought, shit, my scene partner, Michael Vegas, is in the other room… who is this?”
She continues: “So I turn around and it’s a crewmember from set. I look him directly in the eye and go, ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ and I look so upset. So I thought, OK, I can either ruin my makeup, which took an hour and a half to do, or I can go do my scene as quickly as it’s going to take and then as soon as it’s over, I can go and confront Stormy, the director who has all the power that day on set, and the man that did this to me.”
However, Daniels responded by ‘shaming’ her, recalls Reign, saying of the accused man: ‘You probably made him cry.’
Vegas corroborated Reign’s post-scene emotional state, telling The Daily Beast, “I remember the shoot. Relaxed mood. Scene went fine. Right after we wrapped and there was some shuffling around I remember seeing Tasha come back into the room. Her demeanor had changed but it was hard to tell why or what had happened. Everything came to a halt so that the issue could be addressed, and everyone on set seemed concerned for the well-being of us as performers. But I don’t know if there was ever a real resolution.”
There wasn’t, alleges Reign: “So then I confront Stormy and this guy in the hallway and I’m like, ‘This is what happened. What on earth were you thinking?’ The guy starts backpedaling and goes, ‘Oh, I was just trying to get through.’ And I said, ‘If you were trying to get through, why did you grope me? And why did you make sexual moaning noises?’ and he says, ‘Oh, it was a joke.’ I said, ‘That’s sexual harassment and assault. If you don’t know that, that’s a problem.’ Stormy is there, and she’s totally silent. Just neutral.
Reign says Daniels asked if she needed to go into an adjacent room to cool down. She alleges that she did, and Daniels followed her in shortly after.
“Stormy says, ‘I’m sorry,’ gives me a hug, and then she shames me by saying [of her alleged abuser], ‘You probably made him cry. He’s crying right now,’” Reign recounts. “And I thought, wow, I’ve lost all respect for you, and I’m also immediately calling your producer and your company and telling them exactly what occurred.”
The on-set assault allegation first surfaced on January 14, when Reign tweeted at Daniels, “I was innapropriately groped and sexually harassed by one of the men on your crew November 15th right before my BG scene. Which you were then made aware of that day. You continued to allow him to stay on the set with no reprocussion. I never questioned your directorial skills.” Daniels then fired back: “You were not. I was right there…as were several other people and NONE of them will agree with you. How dare you try to undo 15 years of my reputation and his career. I will not allow it. Find me one person who will state otherwise. Best wishes.”
As anyone who’s ever worked with Stormy can tell you, Tasha Reign’s account contains a pitch-perfect description of Daniels’ usual emotionless demeanor.
Reign says that she went over Daniels’ head, and contacted Wicked Pictures’ owner Steve Orenstein, and they immediately met to discuss the matter.
“We’ve had about five meetings since then, and I felt heard at first,” says Reign. “Steve is promising me that Wicked is going to implement new training policies and they’ll be the first company to do it. That gave me chills, because it would be so great that this good thing came from this bad thing, and maybe the rest of the industry will look at Wicked and follow suit.”
“But later on,” she adds, “Steve talks to the crewmember and he says, ‘Well, that never happened.’ He’s denying it happened, and even Stormy is denying it happened—and she wasn’t there when it happened, so how could she know? I have a lawyer, so I’m still deciding what to do. The owner of Wicked said in an email that it’s ‘resolved’ because [the crewmember] will never work there again since Stormy doesn’t work there anymore, and he was only working there because of Stormy. I was like, that’s not ‘resolved,’ that’s ‘convenient.’ I asked about where the new papers are or actions that they were going to implement, and it’s been radio silence for the last two months.”
When The Daily Beast‘s Stern brought Reign’s account to Wicked Pictures, they issued a statement through their spokesperson that read: “We have been and are appropriately investigating.” Pressed further, the company refused to elaborate.
“Now I have to decide on my next steps,” Reign says. “I have to speak up, because this is unacceptable. And I’m not after money. I’ll sue you for a dollar, I don’t care about the money. What I want is for you to recognize, a) This occurred, and b) Here are the new protocols that people have to follow on set, because on a porn set things happen just like every other job, and they’re not being treated the same as every other job. And it’s not OK.”
Two days after the alleged abuse on Stormy Daniels’ set, Reign attended the AVN Awards nomination party in Los Angeles. After an encounter with performer Mr. Marcus, Reign had him tossed out of the event.
Consent is a tricky issue, but if Reign’s account of what happened on Daniels’ set is accurate, she its unquestionably a victim of workplace harassment.
Will others now come forward? It will be interesting to see if this story takes off, or whether Tasha Reign’s account will get tossed out of the news cycle as fast as the inconveniently non-white/non-male/non-Christian YouTube shooter Nasim Aghdam.
