Producer and Manager Vincent Cirrincione Accused of Sexual Harassment

 

Hollywood manager Vincent Cirrincione, who currently manages Taraji P. Henson and has represented Halle Berry, is being accused of sexual harassment by nine women in a story published Friday in The Washington Post.
Three women, Tamika Lamison, Peppur Chambers and Letha Remington, went on the record with their claims against the manager, while six other women withheld their names for fear of reprisal. The Post says that it interviewed each of the women separately, as well as family, friends and others the women had told their stories to.
The allegations of harassment span over two decades, from 1993 to 2011. Three of the women allege to the newspaper that Cirrincione asked them for sex as a condition of his taking them on as clients, and that when they refused he would not represent them. One woman said Cirrincione offered to help her career if she agreed to have sex with him on a monthly basis. Another said that the manager masturbated in front of her during meetings in his office when he represented her.

 Six of the women said that they had either abandoned careers in entertainment or put them on hold as a result of experiences with Cirrincione.
Actress Tamika Lamison told the Post that at an audition for Cirrincione at his hotel suite in June 1996, Cirrincione put his then-client Halle Berry on speaker during a call, forcibly kissed Lamison and propositioned her, offering to sign her if she had sex with him.
Another woman said Cirrincione followed up an acting audition in the early 2000s with an offer to help her get headshots and network with influential figures in Hollywood if she slept with him once a month. She said he called her a week later to apologize and asked her to "forget what we talked about."


Remington said that during an audition in 1993, Cirrincione began touching her shoulders and confiding that he was lonely because his wife worked nights; when she rejected his advances, he told her he could not sign her, she says.
One actress said that after she had taken a few meetings with him in 2010, the manager invited her over to a small gathering at his house, but when she arrived, the two were alone. After he talked about how he represented Berry, he tried to kiss her, took her breasts out of her shirt, exposed his penis, asked her to spit on it and forced her head into his lap.
Another actress, who alleged that Cirrincione masturbated in front of her as she took meetings in his office, said Cirrincione baited women by promising them success akin to that of his most well-known clients.

“Halle was definitely part of his play, and now Taraji is,” she said.
According to the women interviewed in the story, Cirrincione's alleged behavior was an "open secret" in Hollywood that one woman's acting teacher, another's manager and another's lawyer all knew about or had stories about.
According to the website of Cirrincione's company, Vincent Cirrincione Associates, the company has represented Halle Berry, Julie Benz, Taraji P. Henson, James Lesure and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Cirrincione is also the president of Henson's production company, TPH Productions.
Cirrincione admitted to the newspaper that he had affairs "while in committed relationships" but denied all claims that he had "used favors, sexual or otherwise, as a reason for managing anyone" or engaged in nonconsensual relationships.


In a statement to the Post, Berry said that she had severed ties with Cirrincione three years ago after hearing an allegation of sexual misconduct involving him on the radio. "That news literally stopped me in my tracks. I immediately confronted Vince about it, and he denied it completely. But even with his denial, something didn’t feel right in my spirit, and with the possibility that it could be true, I immediately ended our over-25-year relationship,” Berry said. Cirrincione told the Post that he did not recall ever discussing Berry's decision to seek representation elsewhere.
Later on Friday evening, Berry tweeted a statement saying, in part, "I'm livid that he used me, and the role model he helped me become, to lure and manipulate innocent, vulnerable women of color for his predatory actions."
Henson said in a statement to the Post that she had never heard of or seen any misconduct from Cirrincione. “I’ve never had any issue with this on any level,” Henson said. “He totally respected me,” she said.
A representative at TPH Productions reached by The Hollywood Reporter said Cirrincione had no comment on the story at this time. Henson's representatives could not be reached.