In short
A BBC investigation podcast episode about criminal sexual conduct allegations against actor/musician Jared Leto, including claims of grooming, statutory rape, and threats of sexual assault, plus alleged use of fame and assistants to access underage girls.
Guests and backgrounds
Alice McShane, documentary director and investigative journalist; previously directed a documentary about Russell Brand that led to a UK criminal investigation.
Key claims
BBC says it spoke to four women; three are featured. Clara (17 in 2006) alleges an associate obtained her number, Leto discussed California’s age of consent (18), and she later had sex with him the same day; she also alleges no one intervened despite others present. Alex (19 in 2013) alleges Leto arranged a women-only afterparty in a hotel, then threatened sexual assault when she tried to leave. Etta (16 in 2013) alleges Leto invited her to a party, then made explicit sexual inquiries by phone and arranged calls from a “porn producer” (Christian); she says he later pushed NDAs (she didn’t sign). Leto did not respond to BBC’s allegations.
Notable examples
Instagram post by DJ Ali Teals (2012 status resurfaced) triggering broader outreach; alleged phone “private number” tactics; age-of-consent discussions; women-only model invitations; repeated threats and coercion via an assistant.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOAllegations Against Jared Leto
0:46 to 2:09
An overview of the allegations against Jared Leto, including testimonies from multiple women.
“Before we go any further, this episode contains details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct.”
Introduction of Alice McShane
2:09 to 2:26
Alice McShane discusses her background in investigative journalism.
“Today, we tell three of the women's stories.”
Origin of the Investigation
2:26 to 3:41
Alice describes how the investigation into Leto began after a woman's Instagram post.
“Alice McShane is a documentary director with a background in investigative journalism.”
Who is Jared Leto?
3:41 to 6:13
A rundown of Jared Leto's career as an actor and musician, highlighting his dual success.
“But before we do that, for our listeners who aren't familiar with Jared Leto, who is he exactly?”
Historical Allegations
6:13 to 6:50
Discussion on the long history of allegations against Jared Leto dating back to 2005.
“I think he's always had quite a solid female fan base.”
Clara's Story: First Encounter
6:50 to 8:19
A woman's account of meeting Jared Leto and the subsequent texts exchanged.
“Well, as we've discussed, there have been a lot of online allegations, but the work you have done has brought to light some allegations of people that you have spoken with.”
The Age of Consent Issue
8:19 to 9:39
Discussion around the legal implications of Clara's relationship with Leto.
“She was 17 and exchanged numbers, and then they began a sort of texting relationship.”
Hollywood Complicity
9:39 to 11:51
Exploration of the complicity of those around Leto in enabling his behavior.
“And the offence is known as statutory rape if a person over the age of 18 has sex with somebody under that age.”
Analyzing Lyrics and Allegations
11:51 to 12:34
Discussion about the implications of Leto's lyrics in relation to the allegations.
“So in the 2000s, he sets up this band which gains more and more success and he takes a break from acting to really focus on that.”
Alex's Experience at a Concert
12:34 to 14:00
Another woman's account of being invited to a concert and the subsequent events.
“Do the allegations continue after this, Alice?”
Show all 14 chapters
Witness Testimony: The Incident with Jared Leto
14:00 to 16:56
A detailed recounting of a woman's uncomfortable experience with Jared Leto.
“I just remember that I felt the need to say that I'm younger than I am.”
Etta's Experience and Grooming Allegations
16:56 to 21:24
Exploring another woman's account of her interactions with Jared Leto.
“Jared Leto has taken a break from acting.”
Patterns of Behavior and Allegations
21:24 to 23:24
Discussion on the patterns of behavior observed in Jared Leto's interactions with women.
“Well, you've heard these stories from Clara, from Etta, from Alex.”
Cultural Reflections Post-Me Too
23:24 to 25:57
Analyzing the cultural shift regarding accountability for allegations after Me Too.
“they wouldn't be believed, they wouldn't be listened to.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Alice McShane:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30Jared Leto:No bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. Before we go any further, this episode contains details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct. In an exclusive BBC investigation, the Oscar-winning actor and musician Jared Leto has been accused of criminal sexual conduct. Very quickly it turns into this whole sexual thing on the phone. Saying all these things that you shouldn't say to a child. I texted my then best friend and she was saying he was threatening sexual assault.
1:17Jared Leto:I knew with certainty that here in California, the age of consent is 18.
1:23Alice McShane:And he knew at that point that you were 17. Oh yes, he did now.
1:28Jared Leto:Leto is known for starring in Hollywood blockbusters like Fight Club, Dallas Buyers Club and Suicide Squad, as well as fronting the American rock band 30 Seconds to Mars. Before we start, just for fun, it's a tradition of ours. for the last song, we invite a few people up on stage. So my last question for you, does anybody want to come on stage with 30 Seconds to Mars? The BBC has spoken to four women who accused Leto of criminal behavior, including sexual assault, grooming, and statutory rape. They say they were teenagers when the alleged offenses took place. Today, we tell three of the women's stories.
2:13Jared Leto:From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in Paris, and today on The Global Story, the allegations against Jared Leto.
2:26Jared Leto:Alice McShane is a documentary director with a background in investigative journalism.
2:32Alice McShane:In recent years, I've made films that look into allegations of sexual misconduct or predatory behaviour, often involving high-profile people.
2:41Jared Leto:Alice directed the documentary into Russell Brand that's led to a criminal investigation in the UK but it was just over a year ago when her team first started working on their latest expose
2:52Alice McShane:Well, in April last year we noticed a post going up on Instagram and it was written by a woman called Ali Teals and she is based in LA, she's a DJ and she'd shared on her Instagram story a Facebook status that she'd written back in 2012 and the status read, you're not really in LA until Jared Leto tries to force himself on you backstage. After she posted that, she started getting a lot of responses. Women started messaging her privately and saying that they'd had similar experiences with him. Ali, we posted about 40 private messages containing allegations against Jared Leto. So this was quite a significant moment and we thought we should really start looking into the story.
3:40Jared Leto:Well, we're going to come to the women's allegations in some depth with you today, Alice. But before we do that, for our listeners who aren't familiar with Jared Leto, who is he exactly?
3:53Alice McShane:Well, he is a big player in Hollywood. He's an actor. He's in his mid-50s now and he's been around for a long time. I remember him from My So-Called Life, which was a TV drama based in the US. It was set in a high school and he played the kind of dreamy heartthrob. But sort of since then, he's been in a lot of big movies, Fight Club, Panic Room, Requiem for a Dream in the early 2000s was a big one for him.
4:20Jared Leto:I know I can't change anything that's happened, but I want you to know that I love you and that I'm sorry.
4:29Alice McShane:That really kind of put him on the map, I'd say.
4:31Jared Leto:I want you to whip up so much noise right now for this band. This is going to be such a special moment, live on the future...
4:38Alice McShane:but also he has a really successful band.
4:41Jared Leto:Right now, people, it is so good to welcome to the stage
4:45Alice McShane:30 Seconds to Mars! Called 30 Seconds to Mars, and yeah, he's quite unique in that way that he has this kind of dual career as a musician and an actor. I think it's actually quite rare for somebody to be able to do that and do that successfully.
5:00Jared Leto:OK, so you first came across these stories and allegations about Jared Leto with that post by Ali Teals. Was that the first time that these allegations had emerged publicly?
5:15Alice McShane:Actually, no. You know, allegations against Jared Leto have been circulating for many years. The first time anything was published in the sort of more in the mainstream press was 2005. There was an article in the New York Post which alleged that he was approaching teenage models at a hotel in New York and getting their numbers and then texting them. But actually, there's a huge amount of allegations that exist online on forums like Reddit and other social media platforms. And, you know, these date right back to the early 2000s, actually. I think we counted 120 allegations.
5:53Jared Leto:At that stage, he's already an established actor. but that's already also around the time when his band, 30 Seconds to Mars, as you mentioned, really takes off. How much did his moving from acting into music kind of change the way that he was seen by fans around the world and the way he interacted with them?
6:15Alice McShane:I think he's always had quite a solid female fan base. But I think what we noticed, his band, they formed in 98. His band is made up of just him and his brother. Their debut album was 2002, but when they really kind of hit the mainstream was in 2005 with this album, A Beautiful Lie. And I think it was at this point that their fan base really exploded and a lot of the fans at that point were young teenage girls.
6:42Jared Leto:How old are you? You. Come here. Come here. Give me a hug, first of all.
6:53Alice McShane:and he's always had a very close relationship with the fans they actually refer to themselves
6:59Jared Leto:as the echelon that's what i like about high school girl i keep getting older than you stay
7:06Alice McShane:the same age he sort of embraces cult-like imagery around his band and his fan base and you know he really cultivates that connection.
7:18Jared Leto:Okay. Well, as we've discussed, there have been a lot of online allegations, but the work you have done has brought to light some allegations of people that you have spoken with. Around this time in 2006, Jared Leto met a woman at a gig. She's called Clara. Can you tell us about her?
7:42Alice McShane:Clara is not her real name and she is anonymized in the film. She was backstage at one of his concerts in 2006. She was actually working there on the merch stand. And she told us that not Jared Leto himself, but an associate of his approached her. And she said this man was in his 40s. And this man told her that Jared was interested in getting her number. He'd seen her from across the room. And obviously she was very flattered by that.
8:09Jared Leto:You know, most young girls saw him very much as a heartthrob, you know, very handsome,
8:13Alice McShane:great features, professionally very good at what he did as an actor, as a singer. He was a very magnetic person. She was 17 and exchanged numbers, and then they began a sort of texting relationship.
8:26Jared Leto:At that age, I had just been coming out of a really awkward time in adolescence. I had always been very, very shy, painfully shy. I'd blush a lot. I'd trip over my words. it was very validating that someone like him would be interested in me at all.
8:44Alice McShane:And the first time she met him face to face was when he invited her to Chateau Marmont, which is a sort of exclusive hotel restaurant in Hollywood. And she went and met him there and he was there sitting at a table with friends. It's a very kind of secluded, upscale place where they cater to a lot of A-list celebrities. So it was intimidating at first going in there. She says that somehow they started talking about the age of consent in that room.
9:14Jared Leto:I had mentioned to him that my dad was in law enforcement, that I knew with certainty that here in California the age of consent is 18.
9:23Alice McShane:He just kind of shrugged it off like it wasn't a huge concern for him. Clara says later they did actually go on to have sex that same day. So this is quite a significant allegation because the age of consent is 18 in California. And the offence is known as statutory rape if a person over the age of 18 has sex with somebody under that age.
9:47Jared Leto:How old was Jared Leto at that time?
9:49Alice McShane:He was 34 in 2006. So quite a significant age gap.
9:58Jared Leto:As time went on, I realized more and more how scary that really was, being that age and being so naive and vulnerable. There is no well-adjusted man in his 30s who's going to look at a teenager and think, you know, wow, she would be a great partner. The only reason to approach somebody like that is because of how easily manipulated they are. Leto appears, therefore, to have known that Clara was under the age of consent when he begins that relationship with her. But what really struck me as well about Clara's story was that, according to your investigation, Leto had someone come out and get Clara's number.
10:48Jared Leto:She met him with other friends. it strikes me as unusual that nobody seems to have said anything about what appeared to be happening in front of them. What do you make of that?
10:58Alice McShane:That's actually a theme that's really at the heart of this. It's about the sort of complicity of Hollywood more broadly, but, you know, the people around, an individual like Jared Leto, a sort of wealthy, powerful man, there are, you know, layers and layers of people around somebody like that. Not a single person spoke up.
11:17Jared Leto:There were not only just men of his age, but also women. These dozens of people who were traveling with him, touring with him.
Read the full transcript
11:28Alice McShane:She remembers, you know, people that were traveling with him, touring with him, friends around the table. Not a single one said anything to myself about looking out for him or being concerned about how young I looked hanging around him. Nobody said anything. I think it's a really, really important point to highlight that the behaviour of somebody like Jared is completely enabled by the people around him not speaking up.
11:55Jared Leto:So in the 2000s, he sets up this band which gains more and more success and he takes a break from acting to really focus on that.
12:04Alice McShane:Let's talk about the lyrics. You can probably guess which lyrics I'm going to pick out of Up in the Air.
12:10Jared Leto:Oh, I don't know. Surprise me.
12:13Alice McShane:I'll wrap my hands around your neck so tight with love, love, love.
12:18Jared Leto:He becomes better known around the world.
12:21Alice McShane:Quite erotic.
12:22Jared Leto:Is it?
12:23Alice McShane:Tell us a little bit more.
12:24Jared Leto:It's funny that you would take it that way.
12:26Alice McShane:Well, tell us what the song's about if that's not what it is.
12:29Jared Leto:Well, I think, what is it they say? Everything is about sex except for sex. Sex is about power. Do the allegations continue after this, Alice?
12:40Alice McShane:In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, his band was touring a lot and they were playing massive venues across Europe. And one of the stories that we have, the woman's name is Alex. She was actually invited via her modelling agency to a gig in London in 2013. and this is something that we hear from an insider is that Jared would ask crew members to call up the local modelling agencies in the big cities that they went to in Europe and invite models down to the show, only the female models, not the male models. So Alex went to this concert, she went alone and she says that after the concert she was approached by Jared's assistant and invited to an after party.
13:24Alice McShane:She says she was one of eight women and Jared there, so it was quite a small select group. I remember going to the bathroom and when I came out he was standing like in the corridor. She said they started having a conversation.
13:39Jared Leto:He says something and it gets me to say do you know how old I am? And then he says no
13:48Alice McShane:and then I lie and I say I'm 17. At the time I'm 19. She says she can't really remember why but she thinks to sort of protect herself in some way because she said he'd been behaving quite strangely in the evening up to that point. I just remember that I felt the need to say that I'm younger than I am. He said age is just a number and anyway we're in Europe. Which I think is quite indicative of how conscious he was of the ages of consent in the different countries. And as the evening went on, she was having a conversation with the assistant who told her about this other party that was happening after Alex was quite reticent to go.
14:30Alice McShane:She said her phone was dying and she was feeling a bit drunk. But she said she really felt like she was being nudged to go further and further by this assistant and was told that the party was in a hotel. So she made her way reluctantly to the hotel, thinking, oh, well, you know, there'll be other people there. It will be a party. I'll see if it's fun. And if it's not, then I can try and make my way home. I get into the hotel room.
14:56Jared Leto:It's really dark. And then I see that it's just him. Weren't there supposed to be other people?
15:05Alice McShane:And I think he just says, no, it's just you and I. And she, you know, immediately felt a bit uncomfortable and wanted to leave, but she didn't have any phone battery and she didn't have any cash. And she was asking him, can I get a phone charger? He said, no. Can I get some cash to get a cab home? And he said, no. And then she said to him, can I just sleep here then? And then she said that he quite shockingly threatened her with sexual assault if she was going to sleep there, which he repeated to her several times. And she was very shocked and in disbelief and started planning her escape and managed to run out of the room.
15:42I texted my then best friend and she was saying he was threatening sexual assault. You should report him.
15:52Jared Leto:And in my head, I was like, nah. I put myself in that situation. He didn't touch me. It was probably a misunderstanding. I was probably the only one.
16:04Alice McShane:But I'm probably not the only one. And it's probably been a lot worse. But what she's really left with and what's very important about this story is just what a significant role the assistant played, I think, in getting her into that room. Every time that I had an excuse for not going, I was getting nudged to go further.
16:27Jared Leto:The assistant knew what to say to lure me into his hotel room. It seemed that it was planned out.
16:37Alice McShane:And I think it just goes to show, again, the sort of complicity of the people around him.
16:56Jared Leto:Okay, so at this point in our story in 2013, Jared Leto has taken a break from acting. His band has become a big deal internationally. He's a big deal in Hollywood, but things get even bigger for him when he stars in the film Dallas Buyers Club. Does anybody want to try it out for size? You can if anybody wants to fondle. Yeah, here. He wins an Oscar for that performance in 2014. I bet this is the first, the first person to ever give their Oscar away for an orgy in the press room. What happens next, Alice?
17:35Alice McShane:Well, yes, I think this was really the peak of his acting career. I think winning an Oscar is the apex for any actor. So he was, you know, he was absolutely a household name at this point. We speak to a woman called Etta. Etta is not her real name. And she was in L.A. because she was going to an open call at a modelling agency, Ford Modelling Agency. She was 16 at the time. And she'd gone to this open call with her mum. And they were outside Ford Modelling Agency when her mum noticed that Jared Leto was standing to the left of the doors. And he was on his phone. and Etta recalls that he saw them, hung up his phone, and then followed them into the reception area and said that he was talking to them, being sort of friendly and flirty.
18:19Alice McShane:And it was at that point that he told them that he'd just won an Oscar and he asked for Etta's email address because he said he was going to send an invite to the party and that she and her mum could both come.
18:30Jared Leto:I didn't even consider how weird it was to be invited by a 42-year-old man at 16 to a party. Did he know you were 16? I know for sure, if not then, I did tell him a couple of days later when we were texting.
18:46Alice McShane:And then after that, she said that to start with, he was just sort of friendly and seemed interested in how she was getting on with her modeling career. You know, who did you sign with and how did it go? He never would call me without making it a private number.
19:01Jared Leto:I think he did his best to make sure there was no proof.
19:08Alice McShane:but then quite quickly the questions turned very sexual he'd ask her things like are you a virgin
19:14Jared Leto:do you have any kinks he did at least once mention him and i having sex at some point
19:21Alice McShane:how did it make you feel him asking you questions like that um i remember feeling like nervous
19:29Jared Leto:a little like anxious a little uncomfortable but like at the time i remember i had a really hard time like saying like no to things or like putting boundaries up.
19:38Alice McShane:And then bizarrely, Jared said to Etta, I have a friend and I'd like to give him your number and said it was something to do with a business venture and, you know, it might help your career in modeling. So, you know, Etta was open to that. And then a man started calling her that who said his name was Christian and similarly Christian would ask her very explicit questions. And he said that he was a porn producer and wanted to shoot porn and wanted to shoot porn with her and told her that it didn't matter that she was underage. And we spoke to other women throughout the course of our research that had quite similar experiences to Etta, these strange phone calls and receiving calls from other men at around the same time.
20:20Alice McShane:And many of them also believe those men that they were receiving calls from could have been Leto playing other characters. And the last bit of contact that Etta had with Jared was in 2016 when he phoned her up and he said that his lawyer was worried about his relationships with women and that she would like all the women in his life to sign NDAs. And Etta said he was kind of chuckling about that.
20:46Jared Leto:A non-disclosure agreement.
20:47Alice McShane:That's right. Etta said she was willing to have a look at it. So it was sent to her via email. She read it quite closely and there was a line in there that worried her a bit. It said that it wouldn't just cover anything that was said from that point onwards. It would also cover anything that was ever said in the past, so from the date their relationship commenced. So Etta thought that was quite unusual, that anything she'd ever said up to that point, she could be held liable for and potentially sued. So she never signed it.
21:16Jared Leto:Okay, and is that the point at which she stopped having contact with Jared Leto?
21:22Alice McShane:That's the last time they ever spoke, yeah.
21:24Jared Leto:Okay. Well, you've heard these stories from Clara, from Etta, from Alex. if you zoom out from from those testimonies that they've shared with you what kind of picture do you get of Jared Leto at this point?
21:39Alice McShane:I mean the pattern of behavior is quite stark with him you know what we've been told is he approaches sort of young and underage girls and you know engages in grooming behavior I think in a lot of circumstances we've noticed that he is quite conscious of ages of consent in terms of actual physical contact. However, that was not the case with Clara. Clara back in 2006, she was underage and he appeared to not be too worried about that. But yeah, I think what is most stark is using his fame and his access to young women to really exploit that access. And there's just a huge, huge power imbalance.
22:19Jared Leto:You took these allegations to Jaroletto. Did he respond to you?
22:23Alice McShane:As of today, he hasn't responded to our allegations. We gave two weeks to respond and we're actually way past that now.
22:31Jared Leto:We've heard historic allegations like this before in the entertainment industry. And when women come forward with these kinds of accusations, there are inevitably people who question why the women didn't say anything before at the time of the alleged assaults. Why have they decided to come forward now?
22:55Alice McShane:I think for a lot of these women, they are incredibly frustrated at the lack of accountability. Jared's career has continued to thrive over the years, you know, despite the allegations that have been swirling around him. But, you know, I think that at the time, these girls were young. They were pretty powerless. This was a very powerful, wealthy, famous man. And, you know, I think that they felt that if they were to speak out, they wouldn't be believed, they wouldn't be listened to. And, you know, there's so many feelings of sort of shame and embarrassment and self-blame when things like this happen to you, especially when you're young.
23:34Alice McShane:So I'm not surprised at all that it's taken this long for these allegations to come out.
23:40Jared Leto:What are the potential legal ramifications of all of this for Jared Leto, Alice?
24:09Alice McShane:that have allegations, you know, potentially more contemporary allegations than we have in the film.
24:15Jared Leto:Yes, okay. At this point, Alice, we're about 10 years after the beginning of the Me Too movement, which began in the entertainment industry. And you've asked questions in your reporting about whether women who come forward with these kinds of allegations will be listened to or not, 10 years after Me Too began. Where have you landed on that?
24:41Alice McShane:Yeah, I think this is a really interesting point and I think one of the reasons I really wanted to do this story. There's something about our culture at the moment, I think, where the kind of sort of attitudes towards these stories have cooled slightly or the sort of the outrage has anyway. And, you know, I've sort of wanted to explore why that was. There was an article that was published, you know, last year, which contained nine women's stories about Jared Leto, nine women's allegations about sexual misconduct by him. And that went live shortly after Ali Teals' post. And that, you'd think, was a big kind of watershed moment for Jared and his career.
25:23Alice McShane:But actually, he was on the red carpet, you know, not long after promoting his upcoming movie, Tron Aries. And, you know, he seemed to be completely unaffected by those allegations. So yeah, 10 years on after Me Too, I feel like in a way, it's almost as if we've regressed. It's quite difficult, more than, certainly more than it was 10 years ago, to really get people to sit up and take notice when allegations like this are levelled at somebody like Jared Leto.
25:56Jared Leto:Alice, thank you so much for sharing with us all the work you've been doing on this story. It's been really hard to hear the stories, but really important that you share them with us. Thank you so much.
26:07Alice McShane:Thank you. Thank you.
26:15Jared Leto:That was Alice McShane, director of the BBC documentary Jared Leto, Hollywood's Dark Secret. We'll put a link to the full investigation in today's episode description. Despite repeated attempts to contact Jared Leto, he hasn't responded to the allegations put in by the BBC. If you have any thoughts on what you just heard, you can email us at theglobalstory at bbc.com. And here at The Global Story, we cover one story where the world and America meet every day. But for the very latest news headlines, check out our sister podcast, The Global News Podcast. Today's episode was produced by Sam Chantaracac and edited by James Shield.
26:54Jared Leto:It was mixed by Travis Evans. The studio manager was Mike Regard. Our digital producer was Sam Gruett. Our senior news editor is China Collins. And I'm Tristan Redman. Thanks so much for tuning in. We'll be back again tomorrow. Cheerio.
From the publisher
This episode contains details of alleged sexual offences and misconduct.
In an exclusive BBC investigation, four women have accused Oscar-winning actor and Thirty Seconds to Mars frontman Jared Leto of criminal sexual conduct. The woman say the alleged offences took place when they were teenagers.
Despite repeated attempts to contact Jared Leto, he has not responded to the allegations put to him by the BBC.
Alice McShane, the director of the BBC documentary Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, tells us the stories of three of the women.
Read the full investigation: www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd7lg2nz2x2o
Producer: Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: James Shield
Mix: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Clip: Requiem For A Dream/Artisan Entertainment/Thousand Words/Protozoa Pictures/Darren Aronofsky
Photo: Jared Leto attends the "Tron: Ares" premiere on September 30, 2025 in Berlin, Germany. Credit: Gerald Matzka/Getty Images.
