The dancer for artists including Camila Cabello and Jennifer Lopez has been accused in a widely circulated social media post of inappropriate behavior with a then 14-year-old aspiring performer.
Rudy Abreu, a finalist on the 11th season of So You Think You Can Dance and dancer for artists including Camila Cabello and Jennifer Lopez, has been accused of sexual misconduct with a minor in a widely viewed TikTok video.
Charley Bennett, a 22-year-old dancer who has also worked with Jennifer Lopez and Rihanna’s clothing line Savage X Fenty, shared in the video that she first encountered Abreu in 2016 while touring with a dance convention. Bennett, who was 14 at the time, says that she admired the SYTYCD alum, who was a teacher with the convention and in his early 20s.
Bennett claims that Abreu crossed lines with her on multiple instances, including sending her “graphic” messages describing how he would like to undress her. Abreu sent her a naked photo of himself and asked for one in return, she says. She complied “because I did not know what would happen if I didn’t.”
Bennett describes another instance where the two were walking to teach a class and Abreu directed her to look at his shorts. “He has a hole so big in the front of his shorts that the tip of his [penis] is sticking out of his shorts, and he asks me to look at that before he puts it away,” she says in the video.
In a final encounter after the conclusion of the convention, Abreu invited Bennett, then 15, to dance in a video he was producing, she says. Bennett, who flew in to Los Angeles, stayed at Abreu’s apartment, where, she says, he gave her alcohol and weed. He then offered to give her a massage before “pull[ing] me back,” “touching” her and “playing with my waistband,” she says. After telling her that he “wishe[d] that he could go further,” he gave her three hugs “with his hands gripped as tightly as possible on my butt,” she says. (A friend of Bennett’s told The Hollywood Reporter that Bennett shared details of the allegations with her around the time they occurred.)
Abreu did not respond to requests for comment. Abreu’s agency, Go2Talent, did not respond to a request for comment.
Abreu has gone on to work with top musical acts like Bebe Rexha, J Balvin and Peso Pluma, according to online resumes and social media posts. He also appeared on the canceled reality TV show World of Dance. While his social media accounts have since gone private, public social media posts show him actively choreographing for college dance teams and teaching classes for children.
Since starting her own professional dance career, Bennett has shared the story of her experiences within the dance industry. In 2020, she says she spoke to Abreu’s representatives at McDonald Selznick Associates, who have since parted ways with Abreu. McDonald Selznick Associates did not respond to a request for comment.
Bennett’s allegations take place within the insular world of dance conventions, which play a large role in the lives of up-and-coming dancers, affording them an opportunity to compete and take classes with hot-ticket choreographers like Abreu.
“I specifically loved this convention because of one choreographer. I was a huge fan of his from So You Think You Can Dance to up until this time,” she says.
Bennett did not name the convention in her video, though social media posts show Abreu and Bennet working for the convention Artists Simply Human at the time of the alleged events. A Facebook post by the company announcing Bennett as an assistant lists her age as 14. Artists Simply Human did not respond to a request for comment.
Competitors who win in their age division are given the chance to tour with the convention the following year as assistants. It’s an arrangement that Bennett looks back on cynically, noting in an interview with THR that assistants are treated as if they are employees — purchasing expensive mandatory outfits, working early mornings and late nights — without being compensated. It also places the assistants in close proximity to the faculty with few guardrails, she says.
Bennett says that Abreu became close with the assistants on tour, whose ages ranged from 8 to 18. Bennett says that Abreu would invite the assistants to spend time in his hotel room. While Bennett’s mother accompanied her on the tour, she says that Abreu presented himself to parents as a trusted figure and guardian, akin to a sports coach.
“He was on So You Think You Can Dance, he was dancing with J.Lo, and he was following us on Instagram and that was cool,” Bennett says in the video. “We thought that he was a cool mentor and a cool teacher and that’s how boundaries and lines get crossed really young.”
Bennett says that she hopes her video can save other children from going through similar experiences. Since posting the TikTok, Bennet tells THR that she has been in contact with others who had similar experiences with Abreu as minors.
She offered one final message to Abreu in the video.
“Rudy, this is not to ruin your life. You ruined your life on your own by doing all this to a child,” she says.