By Court TV Staff
LOS ANGELES (Court TV) — The second of three women who accuse “That 70’s Show” actor Danny Masterson of raping them took the stand this week for direct-examination.
Jane Doe #3, who has publicly identified herself as Chrissie Bixler, said she was working as a model in Los Angeles when she first met Masterson at a party in September 1996. They began dating not long after. “He was very charming…I fell for him. It was good the first year,” Bixler said.
Though, within five months, she indicated Masterson began taking a stronger stance on how their relationship should be. Bixler testified he began discussing her role, that according to his religion, Scientology, a woman’s role should be at home. She said he also wanted her to become a Scientologist in order to remain in the relationship.
From that point on, she testified they began to fight regularly. “Most of the time I just let it happen because it would get to the point where, if I made it an issue, he would like ignore me for a day or two after, to the point where I would go crawling, apologizing to him.”
By November 2001, when they neared the end of their relationship, an alleged incident occurred at the home they shared. Bixler explained, “I was sleeping, and I woke up and he was having sex with me. And I did not want to. And I told him so. I said, ‘No I don’t want to have sex.’” She continued, “He wouldn’t stop. And so, I was trying to push him off me and he would do this- he would put all of his body weight down on me.”
Jane Doe #3, who has publicly identified herself as Chrisse Bixler, testifies in the rape trial of ex-boyfriend Danny Masterson on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Mona Shafer Edwards)
In detailing the incident, she began to take deep breaths. At one point she brought both her hands to her face in a prayer arrangement, covering a look of distress. “I’m sorry,” she said before insisting Deputy District Attorney Reinhold Mueller continue with his direct-examination.
Mueller patiently pushed onward, asking what she did to wrestle herself free. “I pulled his hair,” she said, which resulted in Masterson making loose-fisted punches to her face. “I was screaming, like, get off of me.” It was at that point when “he stood up over me, and he spit on me, and he called me white trash.”
RELATED: Woman testifies Danny Masterson raped, choked her in 2003
In another account, Bixler said a month later, she and Masterson sat down for dinner at La Poubelle, a French bistro they frequented in Hollywood. From what she remembers, she had “a glass or two” of wine. This was normal for her. What wasn’t normal, was what happened next: “I remember we were getting up to leave and I don’t have any memory after.”
When her memory did come to, it was in the afternoon the next day. She was in bed at the house with no clothes on. “When I first woke up, I felt very confused. And I noticed my whole body hurt. I noticed that the back of my head hurt, like I hit it or something. I noticed that I was injured.” What part of your body was injured, asked Mueller. “My bottom,” she responded.
To help fill in the blanks of her memory, she immediately sought Masterson out. He was downstairs in his office. “He laughed at me, and he said he had sex with me…I asked him if I was unconscious the whole time and he said ‘yes’,” Bixler testified. Her voice then became soft: “It broke my heart.” “Why?” asked Mueller. “Because I really trusted him, and I did not believe that he would take it that far,” she responded.
She said at the end of the conversation, she walked away. Then, after some thought, she returned. “I told him that I was going to go to Scientology Celebrity Center and report him. And he said that was totally fine.”
Bixler said she followed through on this, and a day or two later she met with an ethics officer, Miranda Scoggins. In response to her report, she claimed Scoggins told her not to use the word ‘rape’ and explained that rape cannot happen when two people are in a relationship. Moreover, she said that Scoggins advised her on some of the teachings in Scientology. “There was something that I was doing, or something that I had done to deserve what he was doing to me. We’re all responsible for the condition that we’re in, is what we’re taught,” she testified.
Jane Doe #3, who has publicly identified herself as Chrisse Bixler, testifies in the rape trial of ex-boyfriend Danny Masterson on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022, in Los Angeles. (Mona Shafer Edwards)
At this she said, “I believed her.” When asked why, Bixler simply answered, “She was the ethics officer and I trusted her.”
When she went back to Masterson to request him to “handle what he did,” she said he declined. And at that, she said, “I was done” and went to go stay at a friend’s house before finding another place to live.
It wasn’t until 2016, when Bixler was in Austin, Texas with her husband, and no longer a Scientologist, that she decided to call a rape hotline. She said it was this call that led her to believe she was raped.
In December of that year, she subsequently went to law enforcement to report the two incidents, and the investigation into these accounts began.
Masterson, who is on trial for allegedly raping three women, is only charged with the Nov. 2001 incident in regards to Jane Doe #3. Bixler will return to the stand Thursday for cross-examination.
Court TV does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, which Bixler has.
