The anonymous woman who accused Horatio Sanz of sexual assault last year further claimed that the comedian groomed her in front of his fellow Saturday Night Live cast members.
In a new interview with The Daily Beast, Jane Doe — who named Sanz, NBC, SNL, and 20 unnamed members of the show’s cast in the lawsuit — shared more details about the alleged abuse and how no one did anything to stop it. Two of Doe’s friends also spoke to The Daily Beast, corroborating the nature of her relationship with Sanz, with one adding that they witnessed the alleged grooming at SNL parties.
“Horatio certainly is the main character here, but he didn’t abuse me in a vacuum; he abused me all over Saturday Night Live,” Doe said.
Doe detailed how she was allowed to attend parties and afterparties with the SNL cast when she was a teenager and claimed that Sanz would often treat her as his partner in front of his fellow comedians, including Jimmy Fallon. (Doe’s relationship with the SNL cast began after she started a fanpage for Fallon, Sanz, and SNL.)
“[They] were definitely cuddly and arms around each other,” said one of Doe’s friends, who attended a party with Doe and was given the pseudonym Katherine. “And for all intents and purposes, as an outsider, as a 17-year-old, and from me and Jane talking, they were a couple to me… They were dating in some capacity, and I’m like, ‘Look at how cool Jane is for dating this older guy.’ “
Katherine also told the outlet that a high-profile cast member “began rubbing her leg and called her beautiful” at a different party. “I look back now and I’m like, ‘Why would any famous person entertain us?’” Katherine said. “‘Why would they even give us the time of day?’ And it’s because they were predatory.”
She added, “I will say that they knew what they were doing. They knew it was inappropriate. Thirty-some, 40-some-year-old men know that I look nothing… I looked like a baby at 17.”
As for Fallon, Doe told the outlet that he gave her advice for the SATs and suggested colleges she could attend. Similarly, Doe’s lawsuit alleged that during a party, Fallon said, “So you have a few years before you graduate” after she revealed she was in high school.
“I don’t know how many people knew that Horatio was sexting me regularly,” Doe said. “I don’t know how much of our conversations happened when he was in his office at NBC, which he shared with Jimmy Fallon. But I know that I deserve to know.”
Doe also alleged that at SNL’s Season 27 finale party — days after Sanz allegedly digitally penetrated her without consent — Sanz told her, “Jimmy [Fallon] doesn’t care if you’re a slut.”
Several days later, Doe shut down her SNL fansite. At the time, she said, she was already feeling isolated from her peers, a sensation that only deepened as she moved on to college and realized she couldn’t openly discuss a major part of her life in high school.
“Horatio had sort of set me up to only trust him, and only rely on him, and internalize all the shame, and internalize all the secrecy, and not tell anyone what was going on with me,” Jane said, adding that she began doing drugs during college. (She was later hospitalized because of her drug use.)
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for NBC told Rolling Stone that “they cannot comment on legal matters.”
Sanz’s lawyer Andrew Brettler also did not respond to RS‘s request for comment. He previously said: “This individual’s claims about Horatio Sanz are categorically false. However often she repeats her ludicrous allegations or tries to rope in other high-profile names to generate media attention, they will always be false. Before filing this lawsuit anonymously, she demanded $7.5 million in exchange for her silence. We, of course, refused and will vigorously contest these totally meritless claims.”
The 2021 lawsuit includes text-message exchanges between the two dating as recently as 2019, where the comedian said he was “very sorry” about what happened. “If you want to metoo me you have every right,” he wrote Doe.