Amber Tamblyn Calls Out James Woods's Dangerous Hypocrisy in Open Letter

Earlier this week, actor James Woods, who began dating Ashley Madison when she was just 19 and then Kristen Bauguess when she was just 20 and he was 66, tweeted his disgust with the romance between a 24-year-old man and a 17-year-old boy in the acclaimed film Call Me by Your Name from Italian auteur Luca Gaudagnino (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash). When actress Amber Tamblyn reminded him on Twitter that he once tried to pick her up when she was 16, he called her a liar, but she doubled down and penned an open letter to him for Teen Vogue in which she recounted her random meeting with Woods and called him out for adding to the corrosive narrative that women make up their abuse.

"The nation's harmful narrative of disbelieving women first, above all else. Asking them to first corroborate or first give proof or first make sure we're not misremembering or first consider the consequences of speaking out or first let men give their side or first just let your sanity come last," wrote Tamblyn, 34.

The exchange began when Woods tweeted that Call Me by Your Name and queer people aimed to "quietly chip away the last barriers of decency," adding the hashtag "#NAMBLA," the acronym for the pedophiliac group called the North American Man/Boy Love Association, thereby suggesting that LGBT people are pedophiles. But a few people pointed out his hypocrisy on Twitter, including the film's star Armie Hammer and Tamblyn, who said that Woods, who saw her out in Hollywood one night, invited her to Las Vegas with him when she was a teenager. She wrote that when she told him she was 16 he replied, "Even better."

Following Tamblyn's accusation, another Twitter user asked Woods, "What makes a 24yo/17yo gay relationship inherently indecent but skeevy old guys trying to pick up a pair of 16-year-old girls is okay?" He replied, "The first is illegal. The second is a lie."

In her letter to Woods, Tamblyn said he was missing out on a "teachable moment."

"Through this experience, you can change," Tamblyn wrote. "You can redefine the man who will come after this moment and this man who came before."

Beyond that, Tamblyn refused to back down from challenging his denial of her story. "Since you've now called me a liar, I will now call you a silencer. I see your gaslight and now will raise you a scorched earth," Tamblyn wrote.

She then shared the full story as if she were speaking directly to Woods of how she was leaving Mel's Diner on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood after a show at the Roxy when Woods approached her and her friend Billy and invited them to Las Vegas:

"'It's such a great place, have you ever been?' You tried to make it sound innocent. This is something predatory men like to do, I've noticed. Make it sound innocent. Just a dollop of insinuation. Just a hair of persuasion. Just a pinch of suggestion. 'It will be so much fun, I promise you. Nothing has to happen, we will just have a good time together.' I told you my age, kindly and with no judgment or aggression. I told you my age because I thought you would be immediately horrified and take back your offer. You laughed and said, 'Even better. We'll have so much fun, I promise.'"

Tamblyn, who's starred in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, House, and Two and a Half Men, wrote that she wasn't famous at the time he tried to pick her up, adding that it was something other young women must have endured.

"I wasn't known then, James. I was just a girl," Tamblyn wrote. "And I'm going to wager that there have been many girls who were just girls or women who were just women who you've done this to because you can get away with it."