David Copperfield has released a statement giving his own take on the #MeToo movement, warning of the dangers of false accusations - at the same time that a woman has accused him of drugging and raping her as a teenager.
In it, the 61-year-old illusionist documents his own experience with being falsely accused of sexual misconduct, as he was in the past by a woman called Lacey Carroll in 2007 - who accused him of imprisoning and assaulting her at his home in the Bahamas. No charges were filed against him and in 2010, Seattle police arrested her for allegedly making a false accusation of rape in another case.
"I’ve lived with years of news reports about me being accused of fabricated, heinous acts, with few telling the story of the accuser getting arrested, and my innocence,” the statement read. “Knowing that false accusers can negatively impact the believability of others and are a true disservice to those who have been victims of sexual misconduct, I didn’t draw attention to it.”
He also alluded to another accusation being made by saying "So while I weather another storm, I want the movement to continue to flourish.”
Indeed, that accusation emerged overnight as a woman by the name of Brittney Lewis claimed that Copperfield drugged and assaulted her in 1988 when she was 17 and he was 32. They had met when she took part in a modelling contest in Japan at which he was a judge, and she claims that he later invited her to a show in California and drugged her drink after the show.
She told The Wrap: "He was kissing my face and then I remember him starting to go down on my body with his face, and then, as soon as he started going down, I just completely blacked out."
Read his statement in full below:
