Look at Bryant: Charged with raping a 19-year-old hotel clerk in Eagle County, Colo., the same year that Polanski won his best director Oscar, he is expected to be in the Dolby Theatre on Sunday as a nominee. His poetic farewell, “Dear Basketball,” was turned into an animated short by Disney’s Glen Keane and scored by the composer John Williams.
How is it that the #MeToo moment, so fervently embraced by women such as Oprah Winfrey, whose impassioned Golden Globes speech about a new day for girls led to speculation she’d run for president, has given a pass to Bryant?
The main reason the rape charge against him was dropped is that his accuser refused to testify against him. Who could blame her?
She was publicly vilified after her name was mistakenly published three times on the official Eagle County website. A court clerk accidentally emailed transcripts from a closed hearing about her sexual activity to seven news organizations, which then sued for the right to publish them and won. In separate incidents, three men who made death threats against her went to prison.
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