ERIC NDAVI TALKS SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN ACTING INDUSTRY

Former actor Eric Ndavi has narrated his story through a social media post of how he was sexually harassed in order to get a role. Titled The Sexual Predator that made me quit acting for life, Eric said, “I wanted nothing more than to be an actor. I had spent years trying to perfect my craft. I started in campus and I knew I didn’t want to be a Graphic Designer. Acting made me the better person.

I got to do Cajatan Boy’s first original Kenyan play on a Phoenix Players stage. Benta. It was a wonderful moment and I hope I did justice to the role of Dedan. Shortly after the show ended and I went back to the drudgery of being a stressed-out advertising copywriter, I got a phone call from a Mzungu guy I cannot name. He told me that he was casting for a film role- a film shoot in South Africa. He had watched our show, loved my romantic scenes and he wanted a meeting. My naive 20 something-self drove up to meet with him at his house in Karen. Alone! He then tells me to read for him a role from a movie where a younger Will Smith plays a gay man. As a hungry future-professional, I agree to do it. We record my audition on his camera set-up in his creepy back-room, and I think we’re good to go.

Next phase, he pours me another drink that I can never afford, and tells me that the Director wants to sleep with me. I’m like, What? Then he tells me that everybody has to sleep with somebody in order to make it in the film business. He tells me, “Even Will Smith had had to sleep with this Director, so why not you?” Also, as the Casting Agent, he has to “Taste me first” and then recommend me to the Director. My heart and butthole froze for a few seconds. I told him that I shall think about it. He tells me that I have 24 hours otherwise the “Career-making role of a lifetime is gone” After all this work that my mentors had put into turning me into a better actor, singer, and creative, am I supposed to be turned into this Guy’s sex-toy, and be passed over to another guy? And then I get mega-paid? Just to become a successful actor? I walked out of that house and quit acting forever.”

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