It's one of Tinseltown's open secrets that Bryan Singer likes to surround himself with young men of a questionable age. His pool parties have attracted their fair share of illustrious guests and are rumored to be an entire production involving modelling agencies, club promoters, and studio executives. The director has been accused of sexual assault on multiple occasions, although no lawsuit against him has been remotely successful so far. Some allegations of his misconduct have been detailed in this previous
ONTD post, not to mention that the documentary 'An Open Secret' makes some references to Singer.
Singer's usual companyLet's take a look at some of the people associated with Singer.
1. Kevin Spacey
Alleged sexual predator of the hour, Kevin Spacey, goes way back with Bryan Singer. Singer directed the aptly named cult classic
The Usual Suspects, for which Spacey won the Academy Award for Best Supporting actor. It appears there were some hiccups during the production:
"The Usual Suspects” almost never got made because Bryan Singer caught Kevin Spacey getting a hand job in his trailer from Bryan’s boyfriend and Bryan went ballistic. Walked off the set after a tantrum and they had to shut production down until they could calm him down."The episode did not have a lasting impact, as Singer and Spacey were apparently still partying together years later:
"I did security at Chateau Marmont in 2001 - 2002. Every time I saw Singer he had really young looking guys with him but none of them seemed to be with him under duress. The only times I saw him / them was in common areas so nothing too crazy was happening. The most salacious thing I remember is Singer, Kevin Spacey and some other guy holding court over a bunch of young guys in the corner of the big room downstairs. Lots of flirting and booze (and presumably drugs) but no ones clothes came off. Barely legal is good descriptor for the guys he had with him ... it was like a harem of twinks. There were some guys who looked to be in their early 20's but mostly it guys who were 'late-teens' looking."2. Roland Emmerich Birds of a feather - or in this case, hosts of barely legal pool parties - flock together: if Singer's reputation has been continually thrown into doubt, so has Emmerich's. The two co-hosted a party at Emmerich's home in LA over the 2011 Pride weekend. It appears they disagreed on the number of guests; when Emmerich suggested no more than 400 people, Bryan supposedly said, "You want to make it that exclusive?"
Emmerich stopped hosting the party after the 2009 event drew over thousand people.
3. Wayne Castro
Second from the left: "fashion photographer, producer, and event promoter"Wayne Castro
While Castro's day job seems to be
chilling on twitter, he's also rumored to be a close confidant of Singer and appears to act as his de facto personal assistant. Castro is a regular presence at the gay club night TigerHeat at club Avalon, where he produces the 'Heaven Lounge'. In addition he's known to throw house parties that happen either the same night or on subsequent nights.
4. Tommy Johnson
First from the left: "aspiring writer" Tommy Johnson
Tommy Johnson is an ubiquitous presence in Bryan Singer's inner circle. It seems the "aspiring writer" hosts regular parties at his apartment prior to the TigerHeat nights. The people who go to his parties usually end up going to Singer's parties as well. Funny how that works.
5. Dustin Lance BlackDustin Lance Black is best known for writing the biographical film
Milk, which earned him an Academy Award for the Best Original Screenplay. Oh, and for marrying Olympic athlete Tom Daley! It's noteworthy that Black and Daley went public with their relationship when Black was thirty-nine and Daley was nineteen. No doubt ONTD will love to hear that Black's current celebrity crush is Shawn Mendes, who happens to be nineteen as well...
(And yes, I'm judgmental as fuck because Tom Daley deserves so much better). Dustin Lance Black is known to have attended both Singer's and Emmerich's parties, at one point apparently even with
Tom Daley in tow.
In 2015, actor Michael Egan accused Bryan Singer of having raped him when he was fifteen. Black knew both Egan and Singer and was apparently supposed to act as a character witness for the former; he denied this, however, and did not get involved in the lawsuit. One media outlet described Black as a "close friend of [Singer's], someone he looked up to in the industry."
6. Gary Goddard, David Neuman, Garth Ancier, Marc Collins-Rector
Gary Goddard, CEO of The Goddard GroupAn anonymous accuser has stated that Goddard first contacted him when he was fourteen. When he was sixteen, Goddard allegedly invited him to London (where the age of consent happens to be sixteen) and had sex with him. The accuser also claimed to have been assaulted by Singer when he was seventeen, right after the London movie premiere of 'Superman'. It were these allegations that made the director opt out of further promotional activity for the movie. The lawsuit was later withdrawn.
David Neuman, former Disney executiveThe
Digital Entertainment Network (often stylized as DEN) was a multimedia dot-com company valued at $58,500,000 USD and included former Walt Disney Television President David Neuman, Garth Ancier, David Geffen, Gary Goddard, and Bryan Singer as investors.
Just like Singer, Goddard, and Ancier, David Neuman was implicated in a sexual assault and rape lawsuit by actor Michael Egan, which was later declared ‘untrue and provably false.’ Along with several other employees of DEN, Neuman was also named in a lawsuit "alleging that they knew or should have known that DEN founder Marc Collins-Rector and other executives were taking advantage of teen employees." Neuman was President of DEN at the time. He was not accused of sexual abuse in this case and denied any wrongdoing at the time.
Garth Ancier, media executive (low-key infamous for cancelling the beloved 'Freaks and Geeks')The high-powered executive Garth Ancier was implicated in Egan's lawsuit as well. The extent of his acquaintanceship with Singer is not known, although they run in the same circles.
Marc Collins-Rector, founder of DENRunning DEN out of a Los Angeles mansion, Collins-Rector and his business partners hosted lavish parties. In August 2000 a New Jersey federal grand jury indicted Collins-Rector on criminal charges that he had transported minors across state lines for the purpose of having sex with them. After his indictment Collins-Rector fled to Spain. Interpol arrested them in May 2002 in a villa in Marbella. Collins-Rector fought extradition proceedings for two years before returning to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to eight charges of child enticement and registered as a sex offender.
In 2006, a U.S. District Court granted Collins-Rector special permission to go to the United Kingdom to receive treatment for a brain tumor. He subsequently renounced his US citizenship and has never returned to the United States. As of 2014, he lives in a "European port city" and uses the names "Mark Collins" and "Morgan Von Phoenix".
Collins-Rector and Singer were connected through DEN.
Clearing up a rumor: Ian McKellenBryan Singer directed the 1998 movie
Apt Pupil, in which Ian McKellen plays a fugitive Nazi war criminal who is blackmailed by a local high school student. He also directed
X-Men, X2, and X-Men: Days of Future Past, in which McKellen played the iconic role of Magneto. McKellen is sometimes rumored to have attended Singer's parties, but there is - as far as I and Google can tell - no indication he actually went to them.
In 2006, McKellen is quoted saying he'd never been to one of Singer's parties. McKellen:
"I’ve often said that the way of defining a good director, well, you can’t be a good director unless you can hold a good party. At a good party, you’ve specifically brought together a group of people because you’ll think they’ll get on and you’re job is to make them get on. You’re job is not to have a good time but to make sure they have a good time. (...) Brett is brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but Bryan’s not very good at it. I’ve never been to a party of Bryan’s, but I dread to think what it would be like. Bryan is much more internal and self-obsessed and neurotic. That comes out in the films he makes. That’s part of what he does. Brett’s a party animal. Brett wants everyone to have a good time. If they’re enjoying themselves then so is he."McKellen talks about Brett Ratner here, by the way - the same Brett Ratner who was recently accused of
sexually harassing Olivia Munn. So whether McKellen is entirely in the clear or whether he's been associating with the wrong kind of people anyway is up to anyone's interpretation.
Sources:12345678910111213141516171819202122232425ONTD, is Singer's career finally going to be impacted by allegations one of these days?