Posted in: Movies | Tagged: ain't it cool news, fantastic fest, harassment, harry knowles, HRL

3 More Women Speak Out With Sexual Assault And Harassment Allegations Against Harry Knowles

Three more women have come forward with sexual assault or sexual harassment allegations directed at Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles. They join two other women who have previously made similar allegations against Knowles in the past week. Knowles has previously denied all allegations.

According to a new report from IndieWire's Kate Erbland, who also broke the original story, three more women have spoken out with sexual assault claims against Harry Knowles. One woman claims that Knowles "touched my ass, my thighs… a little grab, as I was walking by," on multiple occasions including at a Halloween party, and once offered to put her name on a list for a Captain America screening at an Alamo Drafthouse theater "if I gave him a kiss."

A second woman, an editor for ScreenCrush, told IndieWire that Knowles once told her "the real way" to get into Knowles' Butt-Numb-a-Thon annual screening party was to "show me your tits."

A third woman claims Knowles sent her unsolicited sexual messages on Twitter, a claim IndieWire says they verified by "reviewing the full history of the messages."

Allegations against Knowles have come out as part of a larger scandal involving Fantastic Fest, the Austin genre film festival Knowles co-founded along with Alamo Drafthouse CEO Tim League. Things started to go south for the festival a few weeks before it began this year when it was revealed that Devin Faraci, the former Birth.Movies.Death. editor who parted ways with Alamo in 2016 after a sexual assault allegation was made public, was apparently quietly rehired by League soon after. When it was revealed that Faraci was still working for Alamo quietly under a different division, Todd Brown resigned as director of international programming, and the film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri pulled out of the festival.

Knowles didn't attend Fantastic Fest this year, and Ain't It Cool News dropped out as a sponsor, amid allegations that Knowles sexually assaulted a woman on several occasions at Alamo Drafthouse events. Additionally, the report from IndieWire claims that the woman, a longtime friend of Tim and Karrie League, informed the pair about the incidents and were told to just try to avoid Knowles. League co-founded Fantastic Fest with Knowles a few years afterward, in 2005. On Tuesday, another former Alamo Drafthouse employee came forward with reports of sexual harassment at at Alamo Drafthouse events, including one involving Knowles.

Several AICN contributors have quit the website in the wake of the allegations. Knowles has "categorically" denied them, but announced he's taking a break from AICN to focus on "therapy, detox, and getting to a better place." Knowles isn't without defenders, however; Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman has come to his defense, decrying the "internet lynch mob" and "SJW shaming." League issued a statement apologizing to "the women that we let down," and also didn't attend the festival.

We've reached out to Harry Knowles for comment, but he has not responded as of press time.

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