Magician David Copperfield is facing allegations of drugging women before sexual encounters, groping women during live performances, and behaving inappropriately with women who were significantly younger than him — including under 18 — in a new investigative piece in The Guardian.
The story contains allegations from 16 women, spanning four decades, from the 1980s to 2014. Over half of those women said they were under 18 at the time of the alleged incidents, with the two youngest victims claiming they were 15 at the time (though there was no evidence to suggest Copperfield was aware of their ages when they met).
One of those 15-year-olds, identified as Carla (not her real name), said Copperfield “groomed” her for more than two years after he gave her his phone number following a 1991 show. The magician allegedly called her at home often and sent her cards and gifts, including one, which Carla received when she was 16, that said: “In 2 years I will be back.”
One of the most convincing tricks he pulled off was transporting two people from the stage to what looked like a believable beach. Totally fooled me (but I was a kid when I watched it).
Edit: I started to figure out that something was amiss soon after, because every single one of the supposedly “random” people he invited on stage to do his tricks with (usually by throwing plastic balls into the audience) wore incredibly “inoffensive” and poorly fitted clothes. At some point, I was able to spot which people he would end up picking from a mile away even before he had done so.