A former MTV VJ says Ben Affleck groped her — here's the footage

Hilarie Burton Marc Stamas Getty

In the wake of the bombshell reporting in the span of a week by The New York Times and The New Yorker, on the decades of alleged sexual harassment and assault by movie executive Harvey Weinstein, many in Hollywood who associated with Weinstein are distancing themselves from the movie mogul.

On Tuesday, Ben Affleck, who launched his career at the Weinstein-owned Miramax when he won an Oscar for co-writing the script for 1997's "Good Will Hunting" with Matt Damon (both also starred in the movie), released a statement on the Weinstein scandal saying it "made me sick" and that Weinstein's actions were "completely unacceptable."

However, soon after, social media users chimed in to say Affleck's comments were hypocritical.

One person tweeted that Affleck once groped MTV VJ and "One Tree Hill" star Hilarie Burton in 2003, when she was 21. Burton saw the tweet and replied back, "I didn't forget."

Here's the exchange:

I didn't forget.
— Hilarie Burton (@HilarieBurton) October 10, 2017

Burton followed that with another tweet saying, "I had to laugh back then so I wouldn't cry." She included a video of a clip looking back on MTV's "TRL," which she was a host on, that included a brief snippet of her talking about being groped by Affleck.

On Wednesday, a tweet was sent out with a different video that appears to show the moment of the alleged grope by Affleck, though he's partially blocking the camera. According to Burton, the clip shows Affleck getting up from an interview with Burton, going over to her, and touching her breast while hugging her. The video also includes Burton explaining what happened.

"He wraps his arm around me, and comes over and tweaks my left boob," Burton says in the clip discussing the interaction, while a video plays showing the hug. In the moments after the interaction, Burton says "Yeah, he pulled that move for sure," to which Affleck replies, "That's his move, yeah."

Though trying to play it off as a funny moment in the video discussing the interaction, Burton said at the time, "Some girls like a good tweakage here and there ... um, I'd rather have a high-five."

Here's the video:

You could say @HilarieBurton "claims" that Ben Affleck groped her on TRL. Or you could just watch the video of it. https://t.co/qOY4DpGmf9
— Kaitlin Menza (@heykmenz) October 11, 2017

Rose McGowan, who reportedly reached a $100,000 settlement with Weinstein in 1997 after an "episode in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival," also took to Twitter to voice her displeasure with Affleck. The actress made it clear that despite Affleck's statement, which made it sounds he was unaware of Weinstein's past, she knew that Affleck was aware of what Weinstein was up to.

@benaffleck “GODDAMNIT! I TOLD HIM TO STOP DOING THAT” you said that to my face. The press conf I was made to go to after assault. You lie.
— rose mcgowan (@rosemcgowan) October 10, 2017

Business Insider contacted Ben Affleck's representatives for comment but did not get a response.

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