Jared Leto reportedly lost out on a role in Barry Levinson‘s political thriller Assassination after producers grew wary of mounting misconduct allegations against the actor.
Multiple sources told Page Six on August 4 that the Oscar winner had been in advanced talks to join the film’s starry ensemble, but those discussions ultimately fell apart.
According to the outlet, Leto was “extremely interested” in joining Levinson’s film and held extensive discussions with the director, with one insider describing it as “seeming like a done deal.”
Sources close to the production revealed that executives and Levinson were aware of allegations surrounding Leto and discussed them internally before talks with the actor even began.
The report followed the premiere of Jared Leto: Hollywood’s Dark Secret, a BBC documentary in which 10 women accused the actor of sexual misconduct. The women alleged the incidents occurred between 2002 and 2016, when they were between 16 and 18 years old, while Leto was in his 30s and 40s.
However, the actor has consistently denied the accusations made in the documentary. “I have never s**ually assaulted anyone in my entire life,” he told several outlets. “These claims are absolutely and categorically false.”
The allegations included claims that he used his celebrity status to make s**ually explicit phone calls and to suggest intimacy with these young women.
The documentary also featured testimony from a former crew member of Thirty Seconds to Mars, Leto’s band with his brother Shannon Leto, who claimed to have witnessed behavior that supported several of the women’s allegations.
The documentary arrived roughly a year after a 2025 Air Mail article that first brought renewed scrutiny to Leto’s past conduct. That report included accounts from nine accusers, almost all speaking anonymously, who said Leto pursued them in the mid to late 2000s, in some cases while they were underage.
One woman recalled Leto’s parties where several young women were present, stating, “I was 18 the first time I went and I was definitely not the youngest person there.”
None of the allegations discussed in the BBC documentary or previous media reports have resulted in criminal charges or civil judgments against Leto and he has consistently denied wrongdoing.
The allegations are not entirely new. In 2005, the New York Post reported claims from an unnamed source alleging that Leto had been “aggressively pursuing” teenage models. The report was never substantiated in court.
According to the report, the source claimed, “He’s been approaching all the girls and inviting them to his shows,” the source said, “Girls from IMG, Elite, Next and Women are staying there and Jared has been hitting on all of them. He’s a serial texter. He is constantly texting these other 16 and 17-year-old girls. It’s really kind of creepy.”
One woman interviewed by the BBC recalled attending parties hosted by Leto, “There is no well-adjusted man in his 30s who’s going to look at a teenager and think… she would be a great partner.”
Leto won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Dallas Buyers Club in 2014 before appearing in films including Suicide Squad and House of Gucci.
