previous/aefccaffadb

Hilarie Burton Opens Up About The Ben Affleck Groping Incident In Her Memoir

Home / Stars / Hilarie Burton Opens Up About The Ben Affleck Groping Incident In Her Memoir

By TheBlast Staff on May 5, 2020 at 2:52 PM PDT

Gettyimages | Jim Spellman

Article continues below advertisement
previous/dafcccafffe
Article continues below advertisement

Gettyimages | Phillip Faraone

Hilarie Burton, best known for her time as an MTV VJ on TRL and her time on One Tree Hill, has written a new memoir The Rural Diaries about her time as an actress and her life on a farm with her husband, The Walking Dead star Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

In her book, Burton shares stories about her start at MTV, including that infamous groping incident with Ben Affleck that resurfaced in 2018 at the height of the Me Too movement. She also opened up about the abuse that many of the actresses on One Tree Hill faced behind the scenes from showrunner Mark Schwann.

Article continues below advertisement
Article continues below advertisement
previous/ccdbcfccfead
Article continues below advertisement

Gettyimages | Peter Kramer

In a clip that went viral in 2018, a young Burton is seen getting groped on camera by Ben Affleck in 2003. At the time, Burton tweeted that she "had to laugh back then so I wouldn’t cry." After the clip resurfaced, Affleck publicly apologized to Burton, saying:

"I acted inappropriately toward Ms. Burton and I sincerely apologize."

"I was nineteen, and I’d taken it on the chin and kept going. One of MTV‘s top brass called me and said, ‘You handled that so well.’ I didn’t realize that I was being groomed—trained to be a good girl and a good sport, someone who would put up with much worse behavior."

Article continues below advertisement