BBC Documentary Details Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Jared Leto

A BBC documentary released on July 29, 2026, titled "Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret," details allegations of sexual misconduct from ten women against actor and musician Jared Leto, with four describing criminal acts. The women allege that Leto engaged in sexual assault, statutory rape, grooming, sexually explicit phone calls, and threats of sexual assault when they were teenagers between 2002 and 2016, while Leto was in his 30s and 40s.

According to the documentary, one woman said she was sexually assaulted in a motel bathroom at age 17. Another alleged she had sex with Leto in California at age 17, which would constitute statutory rape under state law; she said Leto "shrugged off" her mention of the age of consent being 18. A third woman described being threatened with sexual assault in a hotel room at age 19 after being left alone with him. A fourth woman alleged Leto made repeated sexually explicit phone calls to her when she was 16 and suggested they have sex; she was subsequently sent a non-disclosure agreement to silence her, which she refused to sign. Four additional women reported receiving strange and often sexually explicit calls from Leto when younger. One woman said that at age 14, Leto instructed a security guard to take her backstage at a music festival after he made a lewd comment about her chest during an autograph-signing session; her mother confronted him, but he repeated the comment.

The BBC stated it corroborated the women's accounts through interviews with friends and family members who were told about the encounters at the time, as well as photographs and messages supporting their claims. Two men who worked with Leto's band Thirty Seconds to Mars for many years told the documentary they felt uncomfortable with how Leto interacted with teenage girls, sometimes inviting them backstage or to his dressing room. However, the allegations have not been independently verified by external parties.

Leto, 54, denied all allegations in a statement released after the documentary's publication, saying "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life. These claims are absolutely and categorically false." According to the BBC, Leto did not respond to repeated requests for comment before the documentary's release. The documentary represents an expansion of allegations previously reported; in 2025, Air Mail published an article featuring nine women accusing Leto of sexual impropriety, which his representatives denied at the time. The BBC noted it had counted more than 120 separate allegations made online relating to his behavior toward women over the years.