Amber Tamblyn Pens 'NYT' Op-Ed After James Woods Feud: ‘I’m Done With Not Being Believed’
Amber Tamblyn is tired of being questioned. The 34-year-old actress and activist penned a candid op-ed for Sunday’s New York Times about the issues facing women who come forward with stories of being sexually harassed, assaulted, or abused.
In the piece, titled, “Amber Tamblyn: I’m Done With Not Being Believed,” Tamblyn begins by referencing an incident she went through on the set of her TV show when she was 21. That show, though she does not directly name it, appears to be Joan of Arcadia, which ran for two seasons from 2003 to 2005.
Tamblyn talked about speaking to a producer on the show about a member of the crew who had been making her feel incredibly uncomfortable.
He unnamed man “kept showing up to my apartment after work unannounced, going into my trailer while I wasn’t in it, and staring daggers at me from across the set.”
Tamblyn, who noted she was not interested in the man and had been in a relationship at the time, told the producer about the crew member’s actions.
“The producer listened. Then he said, ‘Well, there are two sides to every story,’” she recalled, then adding, “For women in America who come forward with stories of harassment, abuse and sexual assault, there are not two sides to every story, however noble that principle might seem. Women do not get to have a side. They get to have an interrogation.”
The incident was fresh in Tamblyn’s mind after she got into a widely-publicized online feud with actor James Woods this past week. After Woods criticized Armie Hammer’s film Call Me By Your Name for having an underage romance, Tamblyn tweeted about being 16 when she was hit on by Woods. The actor later called her account a “lie.”
MORE: Amber Tamblyn Doubles Down on Accusing James Woods of Trying to Pick Her Up at 16
“What would I get out of accusing this person of such an action, almost 20 years after the fact? Notoriety, power or respect? I am more than confident with my quota of all three,” she wrote in the NYT.
Tamblyn went on to talk about the fear many women have when it comes to speaking out.
“I have been afraid of speaking out or asking things of men in positions of power for years. What I have experienced as an actress working in a business whose business is to objectify women is frightening,” she wrote. “It is the deep end of a pool where I cannot swim. It is a famous man telling you that you are a liar for what you have remembered. For what you must have misremembered, unless you have proof.”
She concluded by encouraging others to raise their voices so that they won’t get taken advantage of, writing, “Disbelief is not just about men disbelieving us. It is about our own disbelief in ourselves… We are learning that the more we open our mouths, the more we become a choir. And the more we are a choir, the more the tune is forced to change.”
For more from Tamblyn, watch the clip below:
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