On Thursday, a spokesman from CBS told Variety that Stephen Colbert’s Late Show has decided to drop a pre-taped interview with Jeremy Piven amid allegations of sexual harassment leveled at the actor by two women.
On Monday, reality television personality Ariane Bellamar accused Piven of sexually harassing her on two separate occasions, once in his trailer on the set of Entourage and once at the Playboy Mansion. Piven “unequivocally” denied Bellamar’s allegations on Tuesday but was hit with another allegation the following day by Longmire actress Cassidy Freeman.
On Thursday, CBS confirmed that Piven’s pre-taped interview would no longer air on Friday’s episode of the show. Variety reports:
According to a spokesperson from CBS, the interview was taped on Monday, Oct. 30, before news of the allegations broke. “Since we were unable to address recent developments in that interview, we are replacing that segment with a new guest,” the spokesperson told Variety.
Piven was on the show to promote “Wisdom of the Crowd,” which premiered on CBS Oct. 1.
CBS has issued a statement that it is currently “looking into” the allegations against Piven.
In a series of “#MeToo” tweets on Monday, Bellamar accused Piven of having twice “cornered” her and “forcefully fondled” her breasts and butt.
“Hey @jeremypiven! ‘Member when you cornered me in your trailer on the #Entourage set? ‘Member grabbing my boobies on the without asking??” she wrote. “‘Member when I tried to leave; you grabbed me by the ass, looked at yourself in the mirror, & said what a ‘beautiful couple’ we made? Jeremy Piven, on two occasions, cornered me & forcefully fondled my breasts & bum. Once at the mansion & once on set.”
Both Piven and HBO, which produced Entourage, issued statements published by Vulture on Tuesday. The actor “unequivocally” denied the “appalling” allegations and suggested that Bellamar was hurting the cause of real victims by “peddl[ing]” false accusations.
“I unequivocally deny the appalling allegations being peddled about me. It did not happen,” said Piven. “It takes a great deal of courage for victims to come forward with their histories, and my hope is that the allegations about me that didn’t happen, do not detract from stories that should be heard.”
HBO’s statement did not address the truthfulness of the claim, but underscored that Bellamar had not informed the network about the alleged incident on set despite having “several avenues” to do so.
“Today, via the press reports, is the first we are hearing about Ariane Bellamar’s allegations concerning Jeremy Piven,” said the network in a statement. “Everyone at HBO and our productions is aware that zero tolerance for sexual harassment is our policy. Anyone experiencing an unsafe working environment has several avenues for making complaints that we take very seriously.”
A day after Piven issued his denial, actress Cassidy Freeman leveled a more vague accusation against Piven on Instagram, accusing him of “predatory behavior” and having done something unspecified to her when she was “far too young.”
“You will deny this because, sadly, she’s deniable,” wrote Freeman. “The backlash this woman received was horrendous. And whether or not her accusations are true, the TRUTH is I know you. I know what you did and attempted to do to me when I was far too young. THAT I know. And you know it too. Unless there were so many of us, that you can’t remember. Predatory behavior is a chronic way for you to seek power. Do you feel powerful? With your lawyers and your networks and your die hard man-fans who call your victims bimbos? Or do you know, in your rotten gut, that you will have to lie for the rest of your life? I hope from now on, you keep it in your pants and you never get to do it again.”