The West Side Story Cast Responded To Ansel Elgort's Sexual Assault Allegations

From winning a Golden Globe to booking several new projects (before her first one even came out), Rachel Zegler’s been busy since wrapping her time as Maria on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story. But along the way, co-star Ansel Elgort’s sexual assault allegations, which he has denied, have mired the star-making movie — something Zegler and her co-stars haven’t directly discussed, until now.

In a Jan. 26 cover story for The Hollywood Reporter, Zegler, Ariana DeBose, and Rita Moreno were asked about the allegations against Elgort. “Nobody really knows what’s going on in anyone’s head,” said Debose. “Only the people who were involved in that situation know what actually went down.” Moreno — the 1961 West Side Story alum — took a similar stance in distancing herself from the allegations, saying that “it would have been absolutely horrendous and wrong for anyone to take sides in that matter. It’s not for me to make those judgments.”

For Zegler’s part, she noted that the film had wrapped production by the time reports against Elgort came out. “We made a movie two and a half years ago, and a lot has gone on in the world since then,” she said. “A lot has changed very publicly, and privately as well. There’s been a lot of awakening. You just hope that the people involved are OK, that they are asked in a respectful manner, and that they are given the opportunity to answer for themselves.”

Elgort did respond to one claim in June 2020 via lengthy Instagram post, though he’s since deleted it from his profile. The Baby Driver star said he had a “brief, legal and entirely consensual relationship” with Gabby, a woman who came forward saying she dated Elgort when she was 17 and he was 20. While he acknowledged that he “did not handle the breakup well,” he denied Gabby’s claims of sexual assault. Elgort’s 2020 Instagram post did not reference other allegations that had been posted soon after Gabby’s, including one user’s since-deleted claim that she’d received naked pictures from Elgort in 2014, when she was 14.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.