In a civil lawsuit filed yesterday (4.16) in Hawaii, Bryan Singer, the 49 year-old director of X-Men: Days of Future Past (20th Century Fox, 5.20.14) was accused of sexually abusing a 17-year-old lad in 1999 and forcing him to take cocaine and basically using him like a chicken hawk. The plaintiff, Michael F. Egan III of Nevada, is now 31 years old. His attorney is Jeff Herman, who has handled many other sexual-abuse cases.

This is obviously a shakedown operation, pure and simple. Egan and Herman want Singer’s money — that’s all that’s going on here.

They apparently timed the lawsuit to coincide with the upcoming release of X-Men: Days of Future Past in order to gain leverage and maximize the pressure.

You could call this the second major attempt to shake down Singer over alleged inappropriate liberties taken with younger males. Remember the Apt Pupil “boys in the shower” brouhaha? Here’s a link to Mark Ebner’s New Times piece about that.

“The claims made against Bryan Singer are completely without merit,” said Singer’s attorney Marty Singer. “We are very confident that Bryan will be vindicated in this absurd and defamatory lawsuit. It is obvious that this case was filed in an attempt to get publicity at the time when Bryan’s new movie is about to open in a few weeks.”

Egan and Herman are scheduled to hold a press conference about the lawsuit today in Beverly Hills.

The suit claims that Egan, at the time an aspiring actor, was abused and taken advantage of by Singer and DEN founder Marc Collins-Rector at the M & C Estate in Encino. The principal charge, indicated by the lawsuit having been filed in Hawaii, states that Egan was flown to Hawaii to stay at the Paul Mitchell estate, and that he spent two nights in a room with Singer [and] that Singer “forced” him to inhale cocaine (how do you do that exactly?) and later forced him to have oral and anal sex. Egan claims that Singer sexually assaulted him again on a second trip to Hawaii. Egan claims in the suit that he never “freely, voluntarily and knowingly consented to these sexual interactions, and often resisted them.”

The age of consent in Hawaii is 16 so they can’t go after Singer for trying to boink a minor.

I’m not assuming anything as I wasn’t there and have no access to the facts. But I’m sorta kinda wondering why Egan waited 14 or 15 years to complain about being abused and exploited by Singer. He’s 31 now. The implication is that he was….what, too traumatized to file the lawsuit five or ten years ago? It took 15 years for Egan to get his courage up and find the right attorney and put the lawsuit together?

I’ve been told for a long time that it’s not uncommon for young gay males (or at least males with budding gay inclinations) to know what they’re doing and what they want and how to get it early on. They know how to play their cards when they’re 15, when they’re 12 even. A well-known, big-time gay director once told me he knew exactly what he was doing when he was “with” older guys when he was roughly 12. This Egan thing isn’t the same as a 15 year-old girl being raped or taken horrible advantage of by some ogre. Guys are different, I feel.

Was there some form of abuse or pressure put upon the 17 year-old Egan in this situation? Possibly but not for me to say. I do know what the lawsuit is basically about — i.e., trying to force Singer to agree to a financial settlement.

What’s interesting is how Badass Digest‘s Devin Faraci and Hitfix.com‘s Drew McWeeny, longtime champions of fanboy flicks whom you might presume would feel at least a measure of sympathy or allegiance to the director of three X-Men movies as well as Superman Returns, posted tweets that said this was inevitable and it’s finally happened and that foolish Singer has screwed himself and that he’d better watch his ass. Here’s tweet #1, tweet #2 and tweet #3.