Ben Affleck accused of groping Hilarie Burton

What's good for the goose is allegedly good for Ben Affleck. The pressure is on him now that the Harvey Weinstein scandal is out of the closet. 

Actress Hilarie Burton claimed on Twitter that she was groped by Afflect during his appearance on TRL (Total Request Live) which she was hosting in 2003. The claim came just hours after Affleck issued a carefully worded statement condemning Weinstein's alleged sexual assaults and harassment of actresses that spanned three decades, including such names as Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie.

Affleck's statement, which came after five days of silence from him and other notable folks (like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, for example) he was summarily attacked by Rose McGowan, the actress instrumental in exposing Weinstein.

McGowan insinuated she had told Ben Affleck about her experience with sleazy Weinstein, and he reacted in a way that suggested he knew Weinstein's "MO" with women and how he harassed them and was sexually inappropriate. 

McGowan and Affleck co-starred in Phantoms, in 1998. The film was distributed by Weinstein's Miramax and released the following year after an alleged episode between Weinstein and McGowan at a Sundance hotel room. Weinstein paid her $100,000 which kind of makes him look like he had done something and he wanted her to keep her mouth shut about it.

One fan tweeted that Affleck might as well have "kept quiet," and another Twitter user tweeted: "He also grabbed Hilarie Burton's breasts on TRL once. Everyone forgot though."

Then Hilarie Burton jumped into the Twitter thread confirming that she remembered the incident in which she wrote: "I was a kid."

Yes, she wa a 21-year-old 'kid' at the time--too young to say something because she was afraid she'd never go far in Hollywood, I suspect.

Then she tweeted a clip of TRL outtakes and says (most likely referring to the Affleck groping): "he comes over and tweaks my left boob." With that clip, which was edited and presented as a glimpse at life behind the scenes on TRL, commenting in a way that suggests she laughed off the incident as a psychological defense.

McGowan claims she was assaulted by Weinstein in 1997 and has been calling out the Affleck brothers over their silence on the Weinstein scandal all week.


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