Since The New York Times finally broke the industry and media-built dam on Thursday, a flood of sexual harassment accusations against mega-producer Harvey Weinstein have continued to pour in, including from A-list celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and Heather Graham. Another alleged victim came forward on Thursday, Kate Beckinsale, 44, who said in an Instagram post that Weinstein sexually harassed her when she was only 17 years old.
“I was called to meet Harvey Weinstein at the Savoy Hotel when I was 17,” Beckinsale begins. “I assumed it would be in a conference room which was very common. When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room.”
“He opened the door in his bathrobe,” she continues. “I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older, unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him.”
Beckinsale then notes that despite her age, he offered her alcohol, which she declined citing “school” in the morning. “After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning, I left, uneasy but unscathed,” she writes.
Weinstein, she adds, did not seem to even remember later if he had made sexual advances at her. “A few years later he asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting. I realized he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not,” she says.
Beckinsale goes on to describe erratic, abusive behavior by Weinstein when she refused to work with him, a description that aligns with other accounts of his conduct.
“I had what I thought were boundaries — I said no to him professionally many times over the years — some of which ended up with him screaming at me calling me a c*nt and making threats, some of which made him laughingly tell people oh ‘Kate lives to say no to me.'”
Beckinsale then zooms back to address the “sick” system of Hollywood as a whole, pointing out that men and women alike have seen their careers damaged by Weinstein, and calls on the industry to stop treating young women as “sexual cannon fodder.”
It speaks to the status quo in this business that I was aware that standing up for myself and saying no to things, while it did allow me to feel uncompromised in myself, undoubtedly harmed my career and was never something I felt supported by anyone other than my family. I would like to applaud the women who have come forward, and to pledge that we can from this create a new paradigm where producers, managers, executives and assistants and everyone who has in the past shrugged and said “well, that’s just Harvey /Mr X/insert name here” will realize that we in numbers can affect real change. For every moment like this there have been thousands where a vulnerable person has confided outrageous unprofessional behavior and found they have no recourse, due to an atmosphere of fear that it seems almost everyone has been living in. I had a male friend who, based on my experience, warned a young actress who said she was going to dinner with Harvey to be careful. He received a phone call the next day saying he would never work in another Miramax film; the girl was already sleeping with Harvey and had told him that my friend had warned her off. Let’s stop allowing our young women to be sexual cannon fodder, and let’s remember that Harvey is an emblem of a system that is sick, and that we have work to do.
More from The Daily Wire on Weinstein and Hollywood:
Heather Graham: Here’s How Weinstein Tried To Get Me To Sleep With Him