Published: 30 August 2022
Last updated: 5 March 2024
YAEL STONE on speaking out about sexual harassment, why social justice is ‘in the doing’ and the importance of accepting your own mistakes.
Australian actor Yael Stone has described her decision to speak out in the Geoffrey Rush sexual harassment case in 2018 as “a deeply uncomfortable decision”, she told the Social Justice summit in Sydney on Sunday.
“I spoke out against a very powerful former friend and colleague, corroborating the experiences of a much younger, much less powerful colleague,” said Stone, who trained as an actor in Sydney and rose to international prominence through her role in the long-running Netflix series Orange Is The New Black.
“All avenues for mediation had been shut down. The only options were silence or speak,” Stone said in her keynote address, titled In The Doing.
All avenues for mediation had been shut down. The only options were silence or speak.
“I spoke for two reasons. Number one, it was the truth. And number two, I suspected that power would protect power. And I'm sad to say that is exactly how it played out.
“After the dust had settled, I was relieved to discover that being forced to talk about these ideas publicly hadn't killed me. I had lost some things and there was a lot of discomfort but I was OK.”
But Stone, who has since left the US and returned to Australia where she has become a climate activist, said she is “not a believer in destroying people from mistakes.
“I do not believe people are one thing. But taking responsibility and owning behaviour has to be the start and then being allowed by society … to grow from that, and not to be frozen in stone, is the crucial next step.
