Actress Bijou Phillips has responded to actor Daniel Franzese‘s allegations of harassment and bullying.
The 37-year-old actress issued the following statement to TMZ: “I want to write to address what Daniel has said. I don’t remember that time well, those years are a blur. I was a teenager and reckless in my behavior. I know Daniel to be a trustworthy and honest person, and to find out through social media that I was not the friend I thought I was to him made me so sad. I am so mortified by this behavior and have contacted Daniel and apologized to him privately. I am not and never have been homophobic. I have nothing but love for the LGBTQ community and Daniel.”
Daniel wrote a lengthy Facebook post over the weekend over the harassment he alleged.
“It started with a lot of eye rolling whenever we spoke but escalated when we did a cast shoot for the poster. As we were shooting she kept loudly saying ‘Are you gay?!’ and laughing while the producers and photographer did nothing to stop her but some of my cast like Micheal Pitt and Brad Renfro kept telling her to shut up but she continued to say ‘Are You Gay?!’ Like 10 times making sure to be loud enough for everyone to hear I reluctantly told her i was bi. Which at the time was how I was choosing to identify as ‘Q’ wasn’t known to be an option yet and to be honest I don’t know that I had many gay experiences at the time my life. I was an extremely late bloomer. She cackled and said ‘HA! He’s bi!’ And then when I showed up to work the next day in front of the crew she was screaming “Oh look! The Bi guy is here!” Daniel wrote.