This Danny Masterson situation has hit me hard. I didn’t know him well, we never shared a meal or had a coffee one-on-one, or anything like that, but he was someone who I would see around quite a bit when I was coming up in Los Angeles. So this would’ve been in the early aughts, when my life was mostly made up of having a shit ton of fun, getting high, and nightclubs.
Danny was always someone who I was a little intimidated by because he was famous, and so therefore (according to the melancholy law of Los Angeles) I was not *really* in a position to feel like I was allowed to be on his level, but still, yeah, a kid I guess I would see around at parties, and whose face I got pretty familiar with over time, and not just because he was in That 70s Show.
When you’re hanging out that way, in that world, you start to recognize other faces around the famous face. The crew around the famous person, so to speak. They all have them.
So before all the shit went down in court in the last week or so there were some faces I hadn’t thought about in a really long time.
One of those faces was this tall blonde guy.
The thing that always stuck out about him, or at least made me notice him was he had these glowing-flowing curly locks of hair. His were blonder and more glowing than mine, and he obviously made more of an effort to make them look like they were part of what might amount to an actual haircut, but essentially he was a curly headed dude who would see me, and I would see him, and it was like our curly hair communed, like dolphin song or something, because I don’t ever think I gave more than a nod or spoke more than a word to this guy despite seeing him face to face over a hundred times. This week I saw his face come up again while I was educating myself about Danny and the multiple counts of rape he has now been convicted of.
Danny Masterson’s brother was in that crew too. I think maybe he has more than one brother. But the one I’m thinking about could not be a sweeter and nicer person. Some other rando from that crew who I very recently saw in a television commercial comes to mind. I think we tried working on a film or something together and it never went anywhere because of ego bullshit?
Danny’s wife was a friend. I knew her way before she married Danny. My dad used to feed her Russian food in my kitchen.
A very close friend of mine (who I no longer speak to) had a far more friendly relationship with Danny. Famous kids like Danny wanted to be friends with kids whose parents were famous, like my former friend.
It turns out I also knew one of the women who has accused Danny of assaulting her. *I say accused because her case was the mistrial.
JANE DOE #3
I didn’t know her that well, less than I even knew Danny. I hadn’t thought of this person in years, but I remember her quite well because a friend had dated her around that time, and it was one of the first times I had been exposed to Scientology.
I remember one night we were all hanging out in an apartment in Los Feliz, right off of Franklin by where my friend Jimmy used to live.
Anyway, Chrissy was her name. She is Jane Doe 3 in the case against Danny Masterson that has him in jail for 30 to life right now. Thirty years to life. I’ve never known someone to go away for that long. I mean, I’ve had a few people in my life who were friends go to prison, but thirty years to life for rape? Ffffuuuuuuck. It’s hard to believe that we shared a history together much less a handshake.
I wish I knew what Chrissy was going through then, and god bless her for saying something about it when the time came to bring Danny’s crimes to light. No matter what people say, it’s incredibly difficult to utter a word against someone, much less a famous person, who has hurt you like that.
I was probably in my 30s when I thought about Danny again. Here and there I would see him around, a glance, a shake of the hand, or the eyes, that kind of thing. But some time in my 30s, there was something else that almost connected us.
When it came time to make my web series Broke A$$ Rich Kid in 2018, I reached out to Danny to see if he might be interested in jumping on board my project as a producer. I was nervous to reach out to him, afraid he wouldn’t remember me from way back when or just laugh me out of the room because I was a “first time filmmaker.” But he didn’t. He invited me to a party to come and talk.
This was back in 2018. I had never heard a bad word spoken about him at the time, though it’s possible lots of people already had heard, and his enablers, including the Church of Scientology, were doing everything they could to suppress it further.
That part of it really breaks my heart, that institutions would willingly work to keep secrets to protect someone in power instead of the innocent people who walked into his line of fire.
I remember sitting next to him at that party. There were a few bowling balls next to us.
This was not a bowling alley, but like a bar with a few lanes, and he was so nice about the promise of my series, that even though it didn’t go anywhere between us, it helped me feel good about what I was making.
I’m really glad that Danny’s name is not on my series. I’m really glad that the survivors had their opportunity to speak the truth. I’m so happy that Danny’s crimes have been brought to light, but on some level I wish we lived in a society that wanted to help people and rehabilitate them, to do more than just punishpunishpunish. It’s why, generally speaking, I am not a big believer in prison.
This is not a defense of Danny Masterson or of his heinous actions. My heart is and always will be with the survivors.
Regarding Danny’s actions, I couldn’t think of anything more debased and disgusting if I tried. He was convicted of two counts of rape. In the words of the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney: “He surreptitiously drugged the victims using an alcoholic beverage as the vehicle for administration, and then forcibly raped them as they became incapacitated.”
Jane Doe 1, aka Jen B, went on to tell the judge how the church of Scientology handled her claims, making her pay for hours of interrogation sessions and forcing her to meet with Masterson so he could apologize and 'promise to never do it again.'
Promise to never do it again? Like a dead-leg?
This is not a defense of Danny. But it is, I guess, my way of saying that the monsters who live amongst us can sometimes be sitting right next to you at a party, telling you you’re doing great, that they believe in you, and one way or another we as a society have to figure out a way to live with that, to understand that our monsters are everywhere and have been cultivated over decades, by us. The sooner we know that, the sooner we can help survivors heal and change the monsters, no matter how disgusting and awful their actions are. This is a world that begs for our forgiveness.
If you feel inclined please consider donating to RAINN, the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.
Note: This was written before I caught wind of the Russell Brand story. Here’s a good read on that story from Eve Barlow, another very good writer on Substack.
See you soon. 🏀🥲
Great read! Amazing how the lives intertwined so closely to yours.