Comedian and TV writer Grace Freud tweeted on Wednesday night that she had been punched in the head twice by a man at Brooklyn bar Clara’s. Eventually the man was identified as director, writer, and actor Eamon O’Rourke.
Freud, who is half of the comedy duo Girl God, added that “What happened tonight is I stood up to an entitled, arrogant man and he didn’t like it. He used that as a reason to sucker punch me in the head twice. As a survivor of assault, believe me when I say this is the hardest I’ve ever been hit in the head that really means something.”
O’Rourke most recently wrote and directed the film Asking For It, in which a woman (Kiersey Clemons) is sexually assaulted by a friend and then falls in with a girl gang to exact revenge. It was released on March 4, and currently has a 23 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes. One recent Letterboxd review spells out the obvious: “To put it simply if you yourself have never been raped, sexually assulted [sic], sexually harassed, or trafficed [sic] you really have no say on the subject matter of the movie.”
Ezra Miller stars as a men’s rights activist in the film, and the fact that they have been accused of and arrested for assaulting women was not lost on Freud. She tweeted Thursday morning: “Ok tho tbh getting assaulted by a director currently promoting a movie starring Ezra Miller about violence against women gotta be one of the funniest things that ever happened to me.” O’Rourke has collaborated with Miller on past projects, and they’re listed as a producer on Asking For It.
People went to the comments of O’Rourke’s now-private Instagram, as well as Letterboxd, to call out his transphobic behavior. Many people allegedly suggested Freud go to the police, which she declined. There’s been a surge in violent transphobic attacks in NYC.
We reached out to Freud and O’Rourke for comment.
