Crash director Paul Haggis took the stand for the second straight day at a New York courtroom where he testified in lurid detail about a 2013 encounter with a woman who has accused him of rape.
Haggis, 69, told the jury Thursday that the incident involving former publicist Haleigh Breest was consensual as the 12th day of trial got underway—most notably refuting allegations the pair had intercourse at his SoHo loft following a Manhattan film premiere on Jan. 31, 2013.
Haggis contradicted much of the 36-year-old’s earlier court testimony, rejecting the notion he had sexual relations with her—beyond what he alleged was consensual oral sex—which the Hollywood screenwriter testified she consensually performed on him.
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Haggis, who said Breest sent him “mixed signals” after they got to his top-floor suite, told the court the pair had approximately five separate kissing sessions, and that he gave Breest space multiple times after she said “I shouldn’t,” even offering to get her a taxi home.
“I’ll take you downstairs and put you in a cab right now if that’s what you want to do,” Haggis insisted he said to Breest. He told the court he later gave Breest a tour of his apartment whilst showing off a number of trophies and awards—including his two Oscars.
Haggis said he later removed Breest’s tights with her assistance.
“She more or less rolled on her back so it was easier to get the tights off,” Haggis explained. “She lifted her butt, her buttocks… when we started sliding it down over her hips.”
As Haggis testified, Breest listened and blankly stared at Haggis from behind her lawyers.
“At any point did Ms. Breest resist?” his lawyer Priya Chaudhry asked.
“No, she was laughing,” Haggis quipped, stating the interaction lasted about five seconds.
Moments earlier, Haggis had testified that Breest looked “cartoony,” comparing her demeanor to both Betty Boop and Jessica Rabbit when the former publicist told him “no, I shouldn’t.”
“It was a little like Betty Boop,” Haggis told the jury.
He described Breest as “bashful.”
“She was smiling,” Haggis said. “It was like a teasing kind of smile.”
Breest, meanwhile, had testified on Oct. 20 that Haggis had looked “like the devil” in the same moment.
“He’s trying to pull my tights down and I’m trying to pull them up,” Breest told jurors last week. “He looked like the devil.”
Contrastingly, Haggis then claimed that Breest later touched his groin over top of his boxers and began “massaging” his penis.
Breest, the Million Dollar Baby writer said, later put her hand on his chest, and gave him back a “confident push” onto a pillow resting on his guest bedroom’s sleigh bed. Breest, then told him, “I’m good at this.”
“What did you understand that mean?” Chaudhry asked him.
“That she wanted to give me oral sex,” Haggis responded, who said he then laid back on his bed and received oral sex from Breest.
Haggis testified he ultimately passed out and later awoke to find that Breest left his home. He couldn’t specify whether he ejaculated, despite his seminal fluid allegedly being found on a pair of tights that belonged to Breest.
Paul Haggis.
Daniele Venturelli/Getty ImagesOn the stand, Haggis stated he had “no memory” of vaginally penetrating Breest.
“At any point that night do you recall inserting anything in Ms. Breest’s vagina?”
“No,” Haggis replied.
During his afternoon cross-examination, however, Breest’s lawyers played a September 2019 deposition in which Haggis said he didn’t know whether he vaginally penetrated Breest.
“Do you have knowledge that you penetrated Ms. Breest with your penis?” prosecution lawyer Ilann Maazel asked in the recording.
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” Haggis said.
“Do you know if you vaginally penetrated Ms. Breest with your penis? Do you know?”
“No,” Haggis flatly said.
Maazel, who paused the recording, then asked, “You don’t remember if you and Ms. Breest had sexual intercourse, is that correct?
“I have no memory of that.”
Haggis’ testimony stood in stark contrast to Breest’s account. Breest, who testified over a number of days in the civil suit last week, told the court that Haggis pinned her to his kitchen and forcibly kissed her before he forced her to provide oral sex before sexually assaulting her. Breest, who said she was “terrified,” described feeling like a “caged animal” during the alleged incident.
“[He] was slobbering all over my face, my mouth was closed and I was turning my head away,” Breest testified. “I was startled and after a couple seconds I broke out of his hold.”
At one point during the incident, Breest had claimed an enraged Haggis asked her how old she was before telling her “don’t act like a fucking 18-year-old” in the midst of suspected tryst.
“Why did you say that to Ms. Breest,” Chaudhry asked Haggis Thursday.
“Because I was getting such mixed signals,” Haggis said.
Haggis, who has also been accused of sexually assaulting or attempting to rape four different women between 1996 and 2015, also directly denied those allegations on the stand Thursday.
Haggis testified he traded a number of emails with Breest, whom he saw at other film events he attended in New York, before he went on to date roughly between 20 and 30 women.
“I don’t know why women—or anyone—would lie about things like this, make up or twist the truth,” Haggis told his attorney.
Haggis’ daughters, Lauren, Katy, Alissa, and son James Haggis sat front row in the court’s gallery Thursday. The Canadian screenwriter’s ex-wife, TV actress Deborah Rennard, who testified Wednesday, sat with them.
Haggis, a former Scientologist and church whistleblower, has also argued that the Church of Scientology manufactured the civil rape case to smear him for for publicly defecting from the religion in 2009.
Maazel paused his cross-examination for the day by quizzing Haggis on a supposed back injury which required surgery 58 days prior to the alleged rape. Haggis’ legal team has previously suggested he would have been physically incapable of raping Breest due to a back brace he’d been wearing at the time.
Haggis’ cross examination is expected to continue Friday.
