Sophia Michaels
Following a three-day testimony where Paul Haggis admitted to having more than 20 extramarital affairs, the Oscar-winning director accused of rape called himself a “broken person” in court Friday and continued to deny he raped a publicist in 2013, per Variety.
“I’m a very flawed human being,” he told the New York civil court Friday. He also repeatedly denied that he raped film publicist Haleigh Breest, who claimed the Crash director forced her to perform oral sex on him and raped her following a movie premiere nine years ago.
“She did not say ‘no’ in the way that one means ‘no,’” Haggis said at the hearing, claiming that Breest didn’t stop him from engaging in sexual activity. “You have to put the word in context…Women and men don’t make declarations like that. They have conversations. We don’t talk like attorneys.”
“There was a conversation about whether she was fat or not,” Haggis said. “I did not think she was fat. I thought she was adorable… She clearly did not want me to see her naked.”
Breest filed the civil suit against Haggis in 2017 following his comments condemning producer Harvey Weinstein.
“The hypocrisy of it made her blood boil,” Breest’s lawyer Zoe Salzman said during the opening statements in mid-October, the Wrap originally reported.
During opening statements, both Salzman and Haggis’ attorney Priya Chaudhry read Breest’s text messages to friends the day after the alleged rape.
“He was so rough and aggressive. Never, ever again … And I kept saying no,” Salzman noted. The defense focused on how Breest texted “lol” when she mentioned the oral sex, and that following the alleged rape, she told friends, “I don’t care too much. I just hope I don’t now have enemies,” the Associated Press reported.
Haggis’ team also suggested that the director’s split from the Church of Scientology is the catalyst for Breest’s lawsuit, an argument that’s similar to the one also being used in actor (and Scientologist) Danny Masterson’s trial currently taking place in Los Angeles; in that trial, Masterson is facing charges levied by two former members of the church.
Also Friday, a judge ruled that the defense could call on actress Leah Remini, also a former Scientologist, to testify as a character witness.
“Leah Remini would test principally about two topics,” Haggis’ lawyer Priya Chaudhry told the judge Friday (via The Daily Beast). “She is, if not number one and number two, enemies of Scientology and things they’ve done to her and the way that Scientology has done these things—her personal experience with the various tactics used to destroy her.”
Remini’s Scientology and the Aftermath co-host Mike Rinder, a former high-ranking Scientology executive, previously testified on Haggis’ behalf, saying that he, Haggis, and Remini were Scientology’s three biggest targets.
Remini and Rinder previously said in a statement, “We expect the next ‘revelations’ about Paul Haggis in this campaign to destroy him to be based on information culled from his Scientology files in the form of more ‘anonymous’ accusers, hiding behind a lawyer who will never have to disclose who is paying their bill.”
