'Charlie Chaplin seduced me when I was just 15 and made revolting sexual demands'
18:39, 2 April 2015
By Christopher Bucktin
Lita Grey, the former wife of the film legends, describes Chaplin's treatment of her as "inhumane" in new-found 1927 documents
www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/charlie-chap...uced-just-15-5448940
Charlie Chaplin had to wed his wife after getting her pregnant while she was under age and made degrading sexual demands, his divorce papers reveal.
In the new-found 1927 documents, Lita Grey describes his “revolting” and “inhumane” treatment of her.
The UK-born silent screen legend knew her since she was eight before she appeared in his film The Kid.
But he seduced her when she was 15, says the 50-page document, found in an abandoned Los Angeles bank.
After she fell pregnant her mother threatened to report Chaplin, then 35, to police if he did not marry her.
The actor could have been charged with statutory rape under Californian law so he arranged a discreet marriage in Mexico on November 25, 1924.
The move however led to a life of misery for his wife who during the three year marriage gave birth to two sons.
The divorce papers reveal she was forced to perform sexual acts that were illegal in California during the 1920s while he also demanded she take part in a threesome with another woman.
Grey described Chaplin’s actions as “revolting, degrading and offensive”.
On one occasion, he screamed at her: “All married people do those kind of things. You are my wife and you have to do what I want you to do.”
The papers state: “The demands were so revolting, degrading and offensive to the plaintiff [Lita Grey] and were such infamous personal indignities and showed such a lack of respect, that they were a shock to her refined sensibilities and repulsive to her moral decency.”
At the time of the divorce details were leaked to the press of his “perverted sexual desires” which left Chaplin on the verge of nervous breakdown as calls for his films to be banned grew.
The graphic details saw a judge award Grey the world’s then-largest divorce settlement of £557,000 - worth £8 million today.
John Cabello (corr), owner of UK company Parade Antiques, which is selling the document for £15,000, said: “We got it from a person in America who was told to clear out old documents at the bank. He was told they would be thrown away, and he kept them instead.”
Chaplin, who died in 1977 aged 88 from a stroke at his estate in Switzerland, said he had had sexual relations with more than 2,000 women.
Forums 
