16 women accused illusionist David Copperfield of sexual harassment
Magician David Copperfield, 67, faces allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior spanning decades. More than half of the women who made these accusations were minors at the time. The investigation was published in The Guardian.
The allegations span from the late 1980s to 2014. The women who made the accusations got to know Copperfield during his work, when he was one of the most successful entertainers in the world. Some of them were only 15 years old at the time, but he might not know their ages. At least three women who accused David Copperfield say he drugged them before having sex with them, making them unable to give him consent.
According to one of the victims, this happened in 1993: then David Copperfield invited her to have a drink after one of the shows, but instead he drugged her. The illusionist's lawyers deny these accusations and claim that drugs "are not part of his world."
In four other cases, women alleged that David Copperfield groped them or forced them to touch him for sexual purposes while performing on stage. Three of them were teenagers at the time. Family members of one 15-year-old girl who were sitting in the audience claim that they witnessed him groping her breasts. One of the victims said that during a performance in 2014 at the MGM Grand casino hotel in Las Vegas, he called her on stage and squeezed her breast. She filed a police report regarding this, but the case was closed due to “insufficient evidence.”
In its investigation, The Guardian revealed patterns in the behavior of David Copperfield: several women said that he promised to help them with a career in the modeling business.
One of the women, who gave her name as Carla, said that they met David Copperfield in 1991, when she was 15 years old. After meeting, he began calling her late at night, she felt that she was being “wooed”: the illusionist sent her gifts and tickets to his shows. This continued until she turned 18, when they had consensual sex, her first time.
David Copperfield's lawyers did not deny that he knew the teenage girl, but they claim that the relationship was legal and consensual and lasted four years.
This is not the first time David Copperfield has been accused of inappropriate behavior: one woman named Brittney Lewis claimed back in 2018 that he drugged and sexually assaulted her in 1988, when she was a 17-year-old model. David Copperfield denied these accusations. In addition, the illusionist came under scrutiny due to his connection with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of child trafficking. Epstein died in prison in 2019, the official version was suicide.