Kate Beckinsale has joined the devastatingly lost list of women sexually abused by Harvey Weinstein, but her story has an especially tragic detail.
When she was just 17, the producer invited her to a meeting at the Savoy Hotel which she assumed would be in a conference room. Instead, it was in his bedroom with him wearing a bathrobe. The teenager had to reject his advances by telling him she had to go to school the next day.
“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,” she wrote on an Instagram post.
“After declining alcohol and announcing that I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed.
“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.”
The actress added throughout her career she said no to him professionally many times, “some of which ended up with him screaming at me calling me a c– and making threats”.
He would laughingly tell people “Kate lives to say no to me” and she said that the fact she stood up for herself “undoubtedly” hurt her career.
Beckinsale proved Weinstein’s volatility and the power he wielded in Hollywood with an anecdote about a male friend of hers.
“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.”
She added: “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.”
This latest accusation comes after Rose McGowan had her Twitter account suspended after hitting out against Weinstein and those who knew about his history of assaulting women.
After a huge backlash, Twitter reinstated her account and apologised for not being clear on its decision.
McGowan had tweeted at Ben Affleck to “f*** off” after he claimed to know nothing about Weinstein’s history of sexual harassment. She said the two had discussed it, claiming Affleck said, “I told him to stop doing that”.
She also tweeted “Now I am allowed to say rapist” but didn’t mention the producer by name.
