After only one season, Fox has reportedly canceled the show “Almost Family.” The news comes just hours after its lead actor, Timothy Hutton, was accused by a former Canadian model of raping her back in 1983, when she was just 14 years old — an accusation Hutton “completely and unequivocally” denies.
In a report published by BuzzFeed News on Monday, former model Sera Johnston presented what BuzzFeed describes as “her truth,” but what Hutton’s representatives say is all about the money.
Johnston, who filed a criminal complaint with the Vancouver Police Department about the over three-decades-old incident last year, told the outlet that in Vancouver in 1983, she and two of her fellow junior high girlfriends met Hutton, who was in town filming the movie “Iceman,” and the Oscar-winner invited them to join him and his buddies, also in their twenties, at their hotel.
When they got to the actor’s room, Johnston says, the guys offered the young teens alcoholic drinks and Hutton began “sidling up” to her. BuzzFeed’s Kate Aurthur and Adam B. Vary describe what Johnston says happened next:
Johnston doesn’t remember how she was led to Hutton’s bedroom, but said he asked whether she had ever had sex. Another man, Hutton’s friend, came into the room.Johnston said she told them things like “I don’t think this is a good idea” and “I don’t think my mother would be too happy about this.” She said she wanted to leave. “To everything I would say, it was, ‘It’ll be OK, it’ll be OK. It won’t last long, and you’ll be fine.’” Hutton was kissing her neck, Johnston said. She felt frozen in fear.
The two men, she says, undressed her “like a doll,” then Hutton allegedly raped her while the other man attempted to put his penis in her mouth. Hutton told his friend to stop, Johnston says. “‘She doesn’t like that,’ or whatever. Meanwhile, he finished raping me,” she claims.
Within hours of the publication of the accusation, The Wrap reported that Hutton’s show, the first season of which concluded just last month, was canceled. The outlet reports that Fox and “Almost Family” studio Universal Television “declined a request for comment regarding whether or not the accusations posed against Hutton today had anything to do with the network’s decision to end the show.”
The show, The Wrap points out, was not performing well, “settling for a 0.7 rating in the advertiser-coveted adults 18-49 demographic and 2.5 million total viewers,” according to Nielsen data.
Hutton’s lawyer said in a statement to BuzzFeed that Hutton “completely and unequivocally denies” Johnston’s allegations, that he has never met her, and that he “will not spend one more minute dignifying these allegations as they are patently false and designed only to extort money from him.”
As BuzzFeed reports, Hutton’s legal team provided the outlet “with an extensive array of information, including a 91-page letter (which they said may not be quoted), meant to discredit Johnston and halt this article. The substance of their argument: Johnston is a liar who’s trying to shake Hutton down.” (Read the full report here.)
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