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Kate Beckinsale said Thursday that embattled movie mogul Harvey Weinstein could not remember whether he had assaulted her decades ago when they first met at a hotel room — an incident in which she said he greeted her in a bathrobe and offered her alcohol even though she was only a teenager.
The Underworld star joined a growing chorus of women in Hollywood speaking out about Weinstein’s behavior over the years, following a growing number of women who have accused him of sexual harassment and in some cases even rape. In an Instagram post, Beckinsale recalled her first encounter with Weinstein, which she said happened when she was 17. Beckinsale said she was told to go up to Weinstein’s hotel room, where he was hardly dressed.
“He opened the door in his bathrobe,” Beckinsale wrote. “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.”
Weinstein, who has been fired from his company, has denied “any allegations of non-consensual sex,” his spokesperson said this week. In an explosive New York Times report last week that opened the floodgates for more allegations, Weinstein said: “I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it.”
Beckinsale said Weinstein also offered her alcohol, which she declined. She said she left the room feeling “uneasy but unscathed.”
“A few years later he asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting,” Beckinsale said of Weinstein. “I realized he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not.”
Beckinsale said she has turned Weinstein down for acting roles many times along the years, which she said “ended up with him screaming at me calling me a c–t and making threats.”
“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,” she said.
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Beckinsale praised all the women before her who have come forward with their claims against Weinstein and urged others not to stay quiet. “We in numbers can affect real change,” she said.
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