Stuart House: Celebs Rumors

Elizabeth Olsen praised her hero, charity pioneer Gail Abarbanel, when she was honoured at Variety's Power of Women event. The Marvel actress was among a host of famous women feted at this year's event, which took place on Wednesday in Los Angeles. After being introduced on stage by her WandaVision co-star Kathryn Hahn, 33-year-old Elizabeth spoke passionately about her involvement with Stuart House, a charity which helps sexually abused children and was founded by The Rape Foundation's Gail.

Elizabeth Olsen may save the day in Marvel films, but on Wednesday evening she highlighted her own hero: Gail Abarbanel, the founder and director of the Rape Foundation and Stuart House. In her speech at Variety’s Power of Women event presented by Lifetime, Olsen spoke passionately about Abarbanel, also in attendance, and the Los Angeles organization that the activist founded nearly five decades ago. “When I learned about tonight, I asked Gail if there is anything that she would like to do next with the foundation, because in my mind she’s already thought of everything. She said, ‘Yes, to stop sexual abuse on the internet,'” Olsen said. “To me that sounded very, very big and maybe impossible. But if you were to ask her what she wanted to create in 1974, I think that would have also sounded just as big and impossible.”

Elizabeth Olsen is one of creative leaders honored for Variety‘s 2022 Power of Women. For more, click here. Power of Women honoree Elizabeth Olsen has volunteered at Stuart House since 2016, spending time with young children and teens who’ve been sexually abused. She first learned of the Stuart House program, part of the UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center-affiliated Rape Foundation, as she was prepping for “Wind River,” a film in which she plays an FBI agent investigating the rape and murder of a young woman. This was in 2015, when Olsen had just moved back to Los Angeles from New York, and was looking for ways to feel more connected to the city. Through her agency, she was introduced to Gail Abarbanel, the president of the Rape Foundation and founder of Stuart House. Abarbanel gave Olsen a tour of the Stuart House space in Santa Monica, where kids who’ve been sexually assaulted are provided free medical, legal and psychological care.

Elizabeth Olsen is one of creative leaders honored for Variety’s 2022 Power of Women presented by Lifetime. To read about her work with the Rape Foundation and Stuart House, click here. For more honorees, click here. When audiences last saw Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff in Disney’s May box office juggernaut “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” it certainly looked like Olsen’s time in the Marvel Cinematic Universe was over. Definitively, actually: An entire castle collapsed on Wanda, a building brought down by her own powerful magic after she sacrificed herself to destroy the Darkhold — the evil book that had corrupted her, turning her into a nearly unbeatable villain for most of the movie.

William Earl Variety is pleased to announce the honorees for its upcoming Power of Women issue and event on Wednesday, Sept. 28. The event, in partnership with Lifetime, celebrates the Power of Women honorees, who will appear on the cover of the issue, as well as the women profiled in the publication’s annual Women’s Impact Report, which highlights the top women working in entertainment.   This year’s honorees include Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, who will be speaking about the importance of celebrating women and sharing their stories, as they do in their eight-part Apple TV+ documentary series “Gutsy,” which premiered on Sept. 9; Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay, who will highlight the importance of hiring female directors as they did throughout the production of “Queen Sugar” currently airing it’s seventh and final season on OWN; Extracurricular Productions president and the world’s youngest Nobel laureate Malala, who will be speaking about young people in film and television and supporting the Pillars Artist Fellowship; and award-winning actress, producer, and star of Marvel’s WandaVision and this summer’s blockbuster “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, Elizabeth Olsen, who will be speaking about her support of the The Rape Foundation/ Stuart House. The program will be hosted by Megan Stalter, the breakout star of “Hacks”.