<p>Michael Douglas has jumped ahead of allegations he masturbated in front of a former employee, insisting he&#8217;s not about to sit back and become the villain of a harassment story.</p> 
<p>The Basic Instinct star claims staff at both The Hollywood Reporter and Variety have reached out for feedback concerning accusations he pleasured himself in front of an employee three decades ago, and he&#8217;s keen to get ahead of the story, before he joins the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Louis C.K., Jeremy Piven, and Brett Ratner, among others, who have been accused of sexual misconduct.</p> 
<p>Douglas has <a href="http://deadline.com/2018/01/michael-douglas-sexual-harassment-allegation-defends-himself-1202239676/" type="external">turned to movie news website Deadline</a> to set the story straight, stating, &#8220;I felt the need to get ahead of this.&#8221;</p> 
<p>Revealing that The Hollywood Reporter contacted him via his attorney regarding the woman&#8217;s claims that he used &#8220;colourful language&#8221; in front of her, &#8220;spoke raunchily, or dirtily with friends of mine in private conversations on the phone&#8221;. The woman&#8217;s third claim was that the actor masturbated in front of her, to which Douglas responds, &#8220;I remembered this woman: sophisticated intelligent, good sense of humour, a novelist, who has written books and published novels and was an active feminist, and proud of it. My head was reeling. I just couldn&#8217;t put this together.&#8221;</p> 
<p>Insisting she &#8220;could have excused herself&#8221; if she was offended by the language he used in private conversations, Douglas adds the allegations he blackballed the unnamed women are &#8220;completely untrue&#8221;. He adds that the claims he masturbated in front of her are &#8220;a complete lie, fabrication&#8221;.</p> 
<p>According to the actor, the journalist at The Hollywood Reporter agreed to sit on the story over the holidays, but in the New Year the publication got back in touch and said, &#8220;&#8216;She&#8217;s (accuser) running around, possibly trying to give this story to other people, so we&#8217;re going to run with it&#8217;.</p> 
<p>&#8220;I said, &#8216;I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s justification, just because you might get scooped, to run a story like this&#8217;&#8230; I was floored,&#8221; he continues. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t know what to say and I tried to digest it. The accusations are minimal, except of course for the idea of masturbating in front of her. She supposedly had three friends who would back her up, that she had mentioned this to&#8230;</p> 
<p>&#8220;How am I, in a 50 year career in this industry, dealing with an employee 33 years ago who perhaps is disgruntled that I let her go, even though I have never heard from her in 32 years. And a legitimate trade publication is going to try and print this story? There is no corroboration, just that they found out somebody else might run the story.&#8221;</p> 
<p>Douglas calls the whole saga &#8220;extremely painful&#8221;, adding, &#8220;I pride myself on my reputation in this business&#8230; I&#8217;m bewildered why, after 32 years, this is coming out, now.</p> 
<p>&#8220;The part that hurt the worst is having to share something like this to your wife and your children. My kids are really upset, have to go to school worrying this is going to be in some article about me, being a sexual harasser. They&#8217;re scared and very uncomfortable.&#8221;</p> 
<p>Douglas also states this isn&#8217;t &#8220;the New Year I had anticipated&#8221;, adding he&#8217;s worried the drama may affect upcoming work he has booked.</p> 
<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m fearful,&#8221; he says. &#8220;I have jobs going with studios who all seem to be supportive at this time. I&#8217;m hurt, really hurt and offended and I wonder if people realize when you do something like this, it hurts a lot more than just one person.&#8221;</p> 
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Michael Douglas denies masturbating in front of ex-employee: 'I'm bewildered'