Actress Caitlin O’Heaney broke a non-disclosure agreement to accuse Val Kilmer of attacking her during an audition for Oliver Stone’s “The Doors.”
O’Heaney, now 64, said that women coming forward with sexual harassment claims against Harvey Weinstein gave her courage to finally speak out.
“Women have come together, saying, ‘We’re not going to be f—ked by you,’” O’Heaney told BuzzFeed on Tuesday. “I finally have the confidence to speak about this. It’s too long that I’ve sat on this story.”
O’Heaney claims that while auditioning for a scene in which she and Kilmer, now 57, were arguing, he struck her in the face.
“When I got to the room and Val Kilmer picked me up and shaked me, throwing me down to the floor, Stone just stood there the whole time laughing.” She added that Stone walked her out the door after the incident and told her, “That got kind of wild.”
“I went down to my car and I cried for about 20 minutes,” she said.
O’Heaney filed a police report after the alleged incident, which reads in part, “Vict and susp (actor) were reading a script for a movie role, susp became angry and stuck vict on her face with his closed fist. Susp grabbed vict and pushed her to the floor. Susp jumped on vict + held her down.”
Eventually, O’Heaney reached a settlement with Kilmer, Stone and Carolco Pictures for $24,500; but after legal fees, she claims she only ended up with about $8,000. The settlement agreement included a non-disclosure clause, which O’Heaney regrets agreeing to today.
“I was so traumatized that, against my better judgment, I signed that document, which says I can never speak about this,” she said. “If this was something that happened nowadays, I wouldn’t sign it.”
However, not everyone agrees with O’Heaney’s version of events.
“I remember there was a moment Val pinned her to the wall — all part of the scene,” casting director for the film, Risa Bramon Garcia, told BuzzFeed, also denying that Kilmer struck O’Heaney in the face.
“It was way blown out of proportion,” she said. “I am not somebody who takes this stuff lightly. I can tell the difference between something that’s abusive and a moment that got carried away … but it was all in the context of the work. [O’Heaney had] a very extreme reaction to a situation that to me was not extreme at all.”
Reps for Kilmer and Stone did not immediately return a request for comment.