From actresses ‘badgered for massages’ and ‘invitations to watch him shower’, we reveal the sex harassment shame of Pulp Fiction film mogul Harvey Weinstein
FOR any budding young actress, a meeting with Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein must have seemed like the opportunity of a lifetime.
But when Divergent star Ashley Judd, then in her late twenties, arrived at his hotel suite for their business breakfast, her nervous excitement soon turned to panic.
She alleges that the Pulp Fiction producer, wrapped only in a bathrobe, repeatedly badgered her for a massage and begged her to watch him shower.
The actress claimed: “I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back with some new ask.”
One urgent thought kept running through her head: “How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?”
In the end, in a desperate bid to get out of the room, Ashley joked that if Weinstein wanted to touch her, she would first have to win an Oscar in one of his movies.
Judd, now 49 and a veteran of more than 40 films, kept silent about the incident at the Peninsula Beverly Hills for 20 years.
But she now has spoken out after a new investigation uncovered a catalogue of Weinstein’s alleged sexual abuse spanning decades.
The New York Times claims the Oscar-winner behind Good Will Hunting, The King’s Speech and Shakespeare In Love has paid out at least eight settlements to women.
Actresses and former employees have described how the cinema powerhouse, worth an estimated £150million, would appear naked before them, ask them to watch him while he bathed and badger them for massages.
Working for Weinstein, 65, was said to involve doing “turndown duty’’ late at night, preparing him for sleep.
One employee is said to have advised a female colleague to wear a parka coat as a “layer of protection”.
In a statement, the mogul apologised for past “bad behaviour” but a later statement from his lawyer said he “denies many of the accusations as patently false”.
He has also announced he is taking legal action against the US newspaper.
In the article, former employee Laura Madden described Weinstein begging her for massages at hotels in Dublin and London beginning in 1991.
She said: “It was so manipulative. You constantly question yourself — am I the one who is the problem?”
The world’s finest hotels — Cannes’ Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, the Savoy in London and the Peninsula Beverly Hills — were the setting for most of the alleged abuse.
It was in the latter that Weinstein allegedly made staffer Emily Nestor an indecent offer — accept my sexual advances and I’ll boost your career.
The business student had only been working for Weinstein for a day when she joined him for breakfast at the Peninsula three years ago.
But when she arrived, her boss, who by then had moved from Miramax to The Weinstein Company, allegedly boasted of the famous actresses he had bedded. She felt the tales were an attempt to seduce her as well.
According to an internal company report, Emily, who rebuffed him, “said he was very persistent and focused, though she kept saying no for more than an hour”.
The following year, at the same hotel, Weinstein reportedly badgered assistant Lauren O’Connor into giving him a massage while he was naked, leaving her “very distraught”.
She wrote in a memo: “There is a toxic environment for women at this company.
“I am a 28-year-old woman trying to make a living and a career. Harvey Weinstein is a 64-year-old, world-famous man and this is his company. The balance of power is me: 0, Harvey Weinstein: 10.”
Weinstein’s fiery temper is notorious in Hollywood and his penchant for taking over from directors in the editing suite has earned him the title “Harvey Scissorhands”.
And Mark Lipsky, former head of distribution for Miramax, referred to Harvey and his film producer brother Bob as “two of the most unrepentant bullies I’d ever met”.
In 2012 Peter Capaldi revealed his Malcom Tucker character in The Thick Of It was partly based on Weinstein. While many alleged victims have remained silent, in 1998 Zelda Perkins, a 25-year-old London-based assistant, confronted Weinstein. She made claims about inappropriate requests and, according to former colleagues, told him he had to stop.
A year earlier Rose McGowan, then 23, reached a £75,000 settlement with the mogul following “an episode in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival”.
The actress, who went on to star in Charmed, has remained silent on the incident. But on Thursday night she posted a cryptic message on Twitter: “Anyone who does business with __ is complicit.”
More recently, in 2015, Italian model Ambra Battilana, then 22, was invited to a meeting with Weinstein to discuss her career. She called the cops within hours. Ambra told them the producer had grabbed her breasts, asked if they were real and slid his hands up her skirt. Prosecutors later declined to bring charges.
Yesterday, British actress Jessica Hynes, known for sitcoms Twenty Twelve and W1A, alleged she had her own brush with the filmmaker.
Jessica, now 44, tweeted: “I was offered a film role at 19, Harvey Weinstein came on board and wanted me to screen test in a bikini. I refused & lost the job.”
Weinstein’s wife, the British fashion designer behind Marchesa, Georgina Chapman, 41, was said to be “furious and humiliated” after the Ambra Battilana claims.
But Weinstein says she “stands 100 per cent behind” him.
Many of the alleged incidents are said to have taken place during his 17-year marriage to first wife Eve Chilton. He has five kids — three with Eve and two with Chapman.
He is known as the modern father of the independent movie scene, helping to bring directors such as Steven Soderbergh and Quentin Tarantino to mainstream audiences.
Meryl Streep has even referred to him as “God”. It has been reported that Weinstein, who backed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in their presidential campaigns, has told friends the allegations are part of a “right-wing conspiracy” against him.
But an article he wrote for The Independent in 2009 about director Roman Polanski, who admitted to unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977, is now back to haunt him.
Calling on the US to drop its case against the movie maker, who fled to Europe before he was sentenced, he wrote “the Seventies era” should be forgotten and that punishment would be “a miscarriage of justice”.
Meanwhile, in a statement yesterday Weinstein said he “came of age during the 60s and 70s, when all the rules about behaviour and workplaces were different”.
He also revealed he was seeing therapists and planned to take a leave of absence from his company.
But he strongly denies the claims of sexual harassment, including those levelled by Ashley Judd, saying: “I never laid a glove on her.”
