Mila Kunis reportedly leveraged her celebrity status to open up an all-male comedic theater troupe to women.
Cambridge sources say the former star of “That 70s Show” upended roughly 200 years of precedence on the prestigious campus after she was asked to accept a Woman of the Year award. Her presence at a Jan. 25 event by the Hasty Pudding Institute was predicated on the implementation of a new status quo.
Wednesday’s reporting contradicts a statement during the ceremony that a decision was quietly made “some time ago.”
“Up until the lunch in Parsnip [with the actress], almost no members of the company knew or thought the co-ed policy would be debuted during the festivities Jan. 25, according to the two individuals,” the Harvard Crimson reported Wednesday.
The newspaper said that Ms. Kunis “phoned at least one member of the Hasty Pudding Institute’s graduate board” prior to accepting the institute’s award.
The troupe has historically allowed women to work technical jobs behind the scenes, but men were the sole stage performers, the Washington Free Beacon reported Thursday.
Representatives for Kunis did not respond to multiple requests by the Crimson for comment.
“My [announcement] letter speaks for itself and is factual in the extreme,” former Pudding President Andrew L. Farkas told the Crimson. “Anything to the contrary would be an inaccurate statement of fact.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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