Actress Selma Blair alleges in report former Cranbrook dean touched her

Michigan-raised actress Selma Blair alleges that an administrator at Cranbrook Schools touched her inappropriately more than 30 years ago, according to published reports.

The 49-year-old former Southfield resident told People magazine about the incident in its latest issue this week while promoting her upcoming memoir "Mean Baby." 

The book is scheduled for release next week. According to the website for its publisher, Penguin Random House, the memoir is "as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering."

Blair, who is known for roles in films such as "Cruel Intentions" and "Legally Blonde," graduated from Cranbrook, a private, preparatory school in Bloomfield Hills, in 1990, according to the website.

In excerpts from the piece that People published in its issue, Blair said she grew close to a dean in the 1980s whom she described as a "wonderful mentor and friend."

According to the book excerpts, Blair wrote that while exchanging gifts with the dean the day before winter break during her freshman year, he kissed and touched her inappropriately.

"He didn't rape me. He didn't threaten me. But he broke me. Nothing ever happened again, but I never felt safe," she wrote, according to People.

Blair wrote that she told her mother, who died in 2020.

In a taped interview posted on People.com, Blair, who recently was featured in a documentary, said she initially did not want to share the experience in her book.

"I didn't realize how much I was hiding it. I just hadn't thought of it for so many years, and I don't need to continue thinking about it, but I wanted to put it out there and hope that people, if they go through a similar thing, maybe, maybe they will just then have a little bit of courage," she told People.

A Cranbrook Schools representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night on the allegation.

Reached by email, Bloomfield Hills Police Lt. Dustin Lockard told The Detroit News: "As of this evening, no victims have come forward to make a formal complaint and no investigation is under way. We would encourage any victims to reach out to our department at (248) 644-4200 so that we may speak with them."

Blair's claim follows Cranbrook confirming last month that several graduates have reported sexual misconduct allegations against a now-dead former staffer.

The employee worked on campus from 1946 through 1961, Cranbrook officials said.

The school hired an independent investigator to look into an allegation by a Cranbrook graduate who said he was a victim more than six decades ago, and that investigation led to reports from other graduates, the school said.