Campaigners call for Thirty Seconds To Mars' UK tour to be scrapped over Leto allegations

Women's safety campaigners are calling for Thirty Seconds To Mars' planned 2027 UK tour to be cancelled following sexual misconduct allegations against frontman Jared Leto, NME reported on August 7.

The calls follow a BBC documentary, Jared Leto: Hollywood's Dark Secret, in which 10 women made allegations relating to alleged encounters with the actor and musician between 2002 and 2016; four of the women accused him of criminal sexual conduct while they were teenagers. Leto has denied the allegations, saying, "I have never sexually assaulted anyone in my entire life."

Leto is due to tour the UK next year with Thirty Seconds To Mars, a run now logged on the tour guide with shows at London's O2 and Manchester's Co-op Live arena. Women's Aid and the End Violence Against Women Coalition both said tickets still being sold for the rock band's shows was troubling, with the coalition's interim director, Janaya Walker, telling the BBC it is "about putting people over profit in this instance."

Walker said seeing the tour move ahead despite the allegations would be hard on the women who came forward, adding, "I think that will cause a huge amount of alarm and frustration and anger." Leto denied the claims in similar terms when the documentary first aired in July, and the BBC has said its own investigation is continuing.

Despite the allegations, Leto has appeared in two major films since, Tron: Ares and Masters of the Universe, and the documentary's director, Alice McShane, questioned why the claims have had little visible effect on his career, pointing to what she called a cooling of outrage around such stories in recent years. "It just feels like the outrage about stories like this has slightly cooled," she said. The allegations follow an earlier Air Mail investigation last June in which nine women accused Leto of misconduct, claims his representatives denied at the time.