Brett Ratner withdraws defamation suit against Melanie Kohler, who accused Rush Hour director of rape last year

Brett Ratner, who had been accused of sexual misconduct by Melanie Kohler last year, is dismissing his defamation lawsuit against her after her lawyer said that her memory of the alleged incident was “cloudy”. [caption id=“attachment_4188925” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] File image of Brett Ratner.[/caption] Melanie Kohler had written on a Facebook post on 10 October, 2017 that Ratner had “preyed on her” a decade ago.  She had alleged that Ratner took her to Bob Evans’ house and “forced himself upon me after I said no and no and no again.” However, she deleted the post two hours later, as per Variety. This was immediately followed by a Los Angeles Times story wherein six other women, including Olivia Munn, accused Ratner of sexual harassment. In November 2017, Ratner sued Kohler in a Hawaiian court, claiming that her story was “fabricated and fictional.” As per a report by Deadline, Kohler’s attorney Roberta Kaplan issued a statement that read, “Cases like this are very difficult, especially when the events happened more than a decade ago and memories are cloudy and unclear. The public conversation about this case has become very painful for Melanie. This result will allow Melanie to move on with her life and spend more time with her family.” Ratner’s lawyer, Martin Singer said that neither parties reached for any monetary settlement in their agreements to drop their claims.