Director Bryan Singer was sued on Thursday, December 7, for allegedly raping Cesar Sanchez-Guzman in 2003 when he was only 17. In the complaint obtained by Us Weekly, Sanchez-Guzman claimed that he had been invited to a party on Lester Waters‘ yacht where he met Singer.
The director then offered to give him a tour. “During this tour, Singer lured Cesar into a room, shut the door and demanded that Cesar perform oral sex,” the lawsuit reads. “Cesar refused and then Singer forced him into acts of oral and anal sex.”
Singer, now 52, “categorically denies these allegations and will vehemently defend this lawsuit to the very end” a representative for him told Us Weekly in a statement.
“Cesar Sanchez-Guzman apparently claims that he did not remember this alleged incident from 2003 until now. Significantly, when Sanchez-Guzman filed for bankruptcy only a few years ago, he failed to disclose this alleged claim when he was supposed to identify all of his assets, but conveniently, now that the bankruptcy court discharged all of his debts, he is able to recall the alleged events,” the statement continues. “The attorney behind this lawsuit is the same lawyer who represented Michael Egan, the convicted felon who sued Bryan Singer in 2014. In the end, Egan was forced to dismiss that case once the facts came out and his story completely fell apart. Egan and his attorneys then found themselves as defendants in a malicious prosecution action brought by some of the individuals who Egan previously sued … We are confident that this case will turn out the same way the Egan case did. And once Bryan prevails, he will pursue his own claims for malicious prosecution.”
This case comes just days after the director was fired from directing the Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. Star Rami Malek reportedly complained to Twentieth Century Fox about Singer’s “unreliability and unprofessionalism” after he didn’t show up to set. However, Singer denies this and claims he was fired because he tried to take time off to deal with a health matter concerning a parent.
“The studio was unwilling to accommodate me and terminated my services. This was not my decision and beyond my control,” he said in a statement, claiming that rumors of tension between he and Malek were also untrue. “While, at times we did have creative differences on set, Rami and I successfully put those differences behind us and continued to work on the film together until just prior to Thanksgiving. I wanted nothing more than to be able to finish this project and help honor the legacy of Queen, but Fox would not permit me to do so because I needed to temporarily put my health, and the health of my loved ones, first.”
