Mere hours after disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years behind bars for sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree, actress Kate Beckinsale recalled an incident with the progressive darling that left her “shaking.”
In an Instagram post published Wednesday, Beckinsale captioned a photo of herself attending the 2001 premier for the Weinstein company-produced film “Serendipity.” The actress is wearing a chic white suit jacket and tie, which apparently triggered Weinstein to berate her for not showing more skin or “shaking” her “a**” and “t***.”
“These photos were taken at the premiere of Serendipity on October 5, 2001,” explained the 46-year-old. “We all refused to go because holding a premiere mere weeks after 9/11 with the city still smoking felt like the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible,” she noted. “But Harvey insisted. We flew into New York and somehow got through it.”
The next morning, recalled Beckinsale, the producer asked the actress to come to his home so their young children could have a “playdate.”
Beckinsale obliged, but when she arrived at his home with her two-year-old daughter in tow, Weinstein called for the nanny to take the kids away. When Beckinsale went to follow them, he allegedly told her, “No, you wait here.”
“The minute the door closed he started screaming ‘you stupid f***ing C***, you C*** you ruined my premiere,'” she recalled. “I had no idea what he was talking about and started to shake.”
“He said, ‘If I am throwing a red carpet you get in a tight dress, you shake your a** you shake your t*** you do not go down it looking like a f***ing lesbian you stupid f***ing c***,'” the actress continued. “The shock made me burst into tears.”
Beckinsale noted that the premiere was right after 9/11, so she did not feel the event was “appropriate, much less coming out dressed like it’s a bachelor party.”
“I don’t care -it’s my f***ing premiere and if I want p**** on the red carpet that’s what I get,” Weinstein allegedly screamed at her in response. “Screaming. Livid,” she added.
“I managed to get myself and my child out of there and yes that was one of many experiences I had that there was no recourse for, and falls under no felony,” the actress said.
“But I WAS punished for it,” she claimed, “and for other instances where I said no to him for years, insidiously and seeming irreversibly.”
Beckinsale noted that it was a “huge relief” to hear that Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison, adding that she hopes the sentence will “be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry.”
The “Underworld” star concluded her post: “[T]he crimes that are not crimes, the inhumane bullying and sick covert abuse for which there is STILL no recourse no matter who you tell (and I did tell), these too need to go,” she wrote. “I hope and pray that we as an industry can start to actually outlaw all abuses of power and expose them and eliminate them, for all genders, forever.”