As the panel conversation kicked off, Amber was quick to point out that Olivia had the guts to publicly out a powerful man she says sexually harassed her well before the #MeToo and Time's Up movements caught fire: director Brett Ratner. Olivia has long maintained that, around 2003, Ratner masturbated in front of her while holding a shrimp cocktail in the other hand. In 2009, she wrote a memoir and detailed the incident but didn't name Ratner for legal reasons. So she was astonished when he admitted the anecdote was about him, all the while dismissing her version of events, instead telling a reporter he "banged her" and "forgot about" her, prompting her to make up the incident for revenge. Munn said she remembers thinking: "Wow. Everyone is going to believe him . . . It was one of the toughest weekends of my life."
Olivia wouldn't back down, though. Shortly after, Ratner's movie Tower Heist was outperformed at the box office by Puss in Boots. She asked her sister to tweet something snarky about the failure referencing his quotes about her and asked other allies to back them up. "That night — I haven't told any of this story publicly — I'm in my hotel room in New York . . . and then I get this caller-ID-blocked number," she told the audience. "And I answer the phone, and it's Brett."
Olivia said he told her it was a joke that was blown out of proportion. Then, she says, he tried to goad her into saying they dated. "And at this point, I had this feeling — never confirmed — that he was recording the conversation," she recalled. He then asked if she would tweet letting people know he apologized, which she said she would do if he corrected his comments on the record.
Before they hung up, Olivia said, she told Brett that he was used to living life like he was the star of his own movie. "But the moment you came after me, you came into my world," she remembered saying. "And this isn't going to be your moment in your world, this is my moment in my world. And in my world, guys like you go home crying."
