Actress claims Val Kilmer punched her in the face while auditioning for The Doors
A former actress has said that she was punched in the face by Val Kilmer while she was auditioning for a role in Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie ‘The Doors’.
Buzzfeed reports that Caitlin O’Heaney was reading for the role of Pamela, the girlfriend of Jim Morrison, played by Kilmer, when the assault happened.
She says that she was required to enter into a ‘verbal argument’ with Kilmer during the audition, during which she was she was punched in the face by the actor, and knocked to the ground.
Kilmer then picked her up off the ground, shook her, and threw her to the ground again, it’s alleged.
While this was going on, she says that Stone, who was present for the reading, ‘just stood there the whole time laughing’.
He then walked her out of the room, saying ‘that got kind of wild’.
“I went down to my car and I cried for about 20 minutes,” she said.
O’Heaney, who is best known for her role in the US adventure series ‘Tales of the Gold Monkey’, is breaking a nondisclosure agreement signed at the time by speaking about the incident.
She was given a settlement of $24,500, though after legal fees and tax, she pocketed just $8000.
“Women have come together, saying, ‘We’re not going to be f**ked by you,’” O’Heaney told Buzzfeed.
“I finally have the confidence to speak about this. It’s too long that I’ve sat on this story.”
She also showed the website a report filed to the Los Angeles Police Department about the incident at the time.
It reads: “Vict and susp (actor) were reading a script for a movie role, susp became angry and stuck vict on her face with his closed fist. Susp grabbed vict and pushed her to the floor. Susp jumped on vict + held her down.”
Neither Kilmer or Stone have commented on the incident, but Bramon Garcia, the casting director who was also in the room, claims that it has been ‘blown out of proportion’.
“I am not somebody who takes this stuff lightly. I can tell the difference between something that’s abusive and a moment that got carried away,” she said.
O’Heaney added: “I was so traumatized that, against my better judgment, I signed that document, which says I can never speak about this.
“If this was something that happened nowadays, I wouldn’t sign it.”
She went on to say that her career suffered after the incident, and she eventually quit acting and moved to Wisconsin to work for Greenpeace.
“My agent would call me and say, ‘Absolutely nobody will see you. We can’t even get you a reading or an audition. You’re dead,’” she said.
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