Actress Kate Beckinsale joined the ever-expanding list of women accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse, alleging in an Instagram message Thursday that she “said no” to the disgraced film producer “many times over the years” — the first of which when she was 17-years-old.
“I was called to meet Harvey Weinstein at the Savoy Hotel when I was 17,” the Underworld film franchise star wrote. “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. 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.”
“After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed,” Beckinsale wrote.
The award-winning actress said Weinstein asked years later if he’d ever come unto her, which is when she “realized he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not.”
“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 cunt and making threats, some of which made him laughingly tell people oh “Kate lives to say no to me,” Beckinsale wrote.
The actress said Weinstein’s alleged behavior “speaks to the status quo,” in Hollywood where “standing up” for herself “undoubtedly harmed my career.”
“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,” she wrote.
Beckinsale said “an atmosphere of fear” keeps people from coming forward about their own abuse. she later claimed that Weinstein blackballed one man who attempted to warn a young woman about the producer:
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,” Beckinsale said.
Last week, a New York Times exposé alleged that Weinstein committed decades of sexual harassment and reached financial settlements with at least eight different women.
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson