Allegations of sexual misconduct have surfaced against Sebastian Bear-McClard, the Uncut Gems and Good Time producer whose divorce from model Emily Ratajkowski made headlines last summer. On Wednesday, Variety published statements made last August by three women in connection with a legal dispute. Two of the women allege sexual misconduct, while the third accused the 42-year-old producer of “troubling behavior.”
One of the women, now 24, alleges in her statement that when she was 17 years old, Bear-McClard reached out to her on Instagram—and that he eventually cast her in Good Time, a 2017 crime thriller directed by Josh and Benny Safdie. Reporter Tatiana Siegel writes that the teenager did not know what her scene would involve when she arrived for filming. “By the time she made her way to a cramped room, she was naked, standing in front of nearly a dozen male cast and crew members including Josh and Benny Safdie.” (Two of the sources who spoke with Variety were in the room during the shoot.)
The statement further alleges that Bear-McClard and the teenager began a sexual relationship soon after Good Time’s production ended. (New York’s age of consent is 17.) A spokeswoman for the Safdies told Variety that the brothers’ production company, Elara Pictures—which they co-founded in 2014 with Bear-McClard and producer Oscar Boyson—was “made aware of Sebastian McClard’s behavior in July 2022. They took immediate action and terminated him.”
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Variety reports that a second woman, who also provided a statement in August, said that Bear-McClard “groomed” her on Instagram at the age of 18—and that during one in-person encounter, he sexually assaulted her. For a time, Bear-McClard allegedly tracked her using an app on her phone. The statement alleges that during her acquaintance with Bear-McClard, he also sent Instagram messages to a 15-year-old girl who had visited the Uncut Gems set, Variety reports. The publication does not describe the third woman’s statement in detail; Siegel writes that the statement “asserts that Bear-McClard engaged in troubling behavior.”
Ratajkowski did not comment on Variety’s report, but the trade noted that friends said she was not surprised by the statements about her estranged husband, from whom she split last fall after four years of marriage. Bear-McClard himself declined to comment when reached by Variety, as did Good Time and Uncut Gems distributor A24.
A source told IndieWire that A24 was not aware of the allegations linked to Good Time when the company struck its licensing deal for the film, and that no complaints were received during the production of the 2019 drama Uncut Gems. Variety, however, reports that A24 signed Elara’s first-look deal in 2020—“well after the allegations had become a hot topic among insiders involved with the films.”
