Four women have accused Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct, with the alleged offenses taking place when they were teenagers. The claims are detailed in the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, which features interviews with 10 women, nine of whom are speaking publicly for the first time.
One woman says she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom in Las Vegas when she was 17. Another alleges Leto threatened her with sexual assault when she was 19 after being left alone with him in a London hotel room. A third woman claims she had underage sex with the star in California when she was 17, which would be classified as statutory rape, as the age of consent in the state is 18, and that Leto “shrugged off” a conversation about the legal age. The fourth woman says Leto groomed her with sexually explicit phone calls when she was 16 and later sent her a non-disclosure agreement, which she refused to sign.
Four additional women also say they received strange and often sexual phone calls from Leto when they were younger. Another woman alleges that when she was 14, Leto made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph signing and instructed a security guard to take her backstage.
All the women say they encountered Leto between 2002 and 2016, when he was in his 30s and 40s. He is now 54 . The BBC says it corroborated a number of the women’s accounts with friends and family who were told at the time, and in some cases, viewed pictures and messages that support the claims.
Two men who worked with Leto’s band for many years also told the documentary that staff felt uncomfortable with the way Leto would interact with teenage girls, sometimes inviting them backstage to his dressing room or to the house where he was recording. “I think everyone thought the age gap was way too big,” one said.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Jared Leto, he has not responded to the allegations put to him by the BBC. In 2025, nine women accused Leto of sexual impropriety in an article by US media outlet Air Mail, allegations he denied.
No criminal charges related to the allegations have been announced, and the claims have not been proven in court.
