Over the weekend, two teen-heartthrobs were thrust into the spotlight over alleged sexual assault allegations.
On Saturday night, Ansel Elgort denied a sexual assault allegation in an Instagram post from a woman who only identified herself as Gabby.
Gabby accused Elgort on Friday of sexually assaulting her in 2014 when she was just 17-years-old. Gabby claims in a Twitter post that after the two met through messaging on social media, Elgort took her virginity and while she was “sobbing in pain” during the experience, he did not ask if she wanted to stop.
Elgort, 26, confirmed the encounter did happen but insisted that their relationship was “legal and entirely consensual.”
“I cannot claim to understand Gabby’s feelings but her description of events is simply not what happened,” Elgort wrote. “I have never and would never assault anyone. What is true is that in New York in 2014, when I was 20, Gabby and I had a brief, legal and entirely consensual relationship.”
Elgort went on to credit Gabby’s feelings as the result of a messy breakup.
“Unfortunately, I did not handle the breakup well,” he continued. “I stopped responding to her, which is an immature and cruel thing to do to someone. I know this belated apology does not absolve me of my unacceptable behavior when I disappeared. As I look back on my attitude, I am disgusted and deeply ashamed of the way I acted,” he continued. “I am truly sorry.”
Gabby, who seems to have deleted her Twitter account after posting her message, had written that “when [the sexual encounter] happened, instead of asking me if I wanted to stop having sex knowing it was my first time and I was sobbing in pain and I didn’t want to do it, the only words that came out of his mouth were ‘we need to break you in…I WASN’T there in that moment mentally,” she wrote.
But Ansel was not the only one in hot water for the interwebs to see.
After an anonymous Twitter user accused Justin Bieber of sexual assault, Bieber produced screenshots of emails and hotel receipts to refute the claim.
On Saturday evening, a Twitter user under the name Danielle (who decided to keep her last name anonymous) alleged that she was assaulted by the singer in 2014 when she was 21 and Bieber was 20.
Both the tweet and that account her later removed from Twitter.
Danielle alleged how she met Bieber while attending an event in Texas and also claimed that she and her friends were invited back to the pop star’s hotel where she was “sexually assaulted without consent.” Danielle did not identify the friends and has since, not spoken publicly about the claim.
“I don’t normally address things as I have dealt with random accusations my entire career but after talking with my wife [Hailey Baldwin] and team I have decided to speak up on an issue tonight,” Bieber, 26, began a series of tweets on Sunday evening.
“Rumors are rumors but sexual abuse is something I don’t take lightly. I wanted to speak out right away but out of respect to so many victims who deal with these issues daily I wanted to make sure I gathered the facts before I made any statement,” Bieber wrote.
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“In the past 24 hours a new Twitter appeared that told a story of myself involved with sexual abuse on March 9, 2014 in Austin Texas at the Four seasons hotel. I want to be clear. There is no truth to this story. In fact as I will soon show I was never present at that location,” he said.
Bieber went on to share multiple posts to Twitter, including links to articles from the time period in addition to proof of receipts and emails, to deny the allegation.
Bieber concluded his series of posts, writing, “Every claim of sexual abuse should be taken very seriously and this is why my response was needed. However this story is factually impossible and that is why I will be working with twitter and authorities to take legal action.”