Angelina Jolie has joined the many women who have come forward with on-the-record sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
“I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did,” the Oscar winner, 42, claimed in an email to The New York Times in a report published on Tuesday, October 10. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”
According to the newspaper, Weinstein, 65, allegedly made unwanted advances on Jolie in a hotel room in the late 1990s around the time of the release of her film Playing by Heart.
Gwyneth Paltrow shared a similar story with the Times. She claimed that after the producer hired her for the lead role in the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma, he invited her to his suite at The Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills for a work meeting that ended with him placing his hands on her and suggesting bedroom massages.
“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” the 45-year-old actress, who was 22 at the time of the alleged encounter, recalled in an interview with the paper.
Paltrow refused Weinstein’s alleged advances and told her then-boyfriend, Brad Pitt, who later married Jolie. The actor, 53, confronted Weinstein “very clearly and strongly and unequivocally” at a movie premiere, a source confirms to Us Weekly. The executive then allegedly threatened Paltrow over the phone not to tell anyone else. “I thought he was going to fire me,” she said. “He screamed at me for a long time. It was brutal.”
The Goop founder has since decided to speak out in hopes of helping those in similar situations. “We’re at a point in time when women need to send a clear message that this is over. This way of treating women ends now,” she said.
Weinstein has been under fire since The New York Times published a blistering report last week that detailed nearly 30 years of allegations against him. He was fired from The Weinstein Company on Sunday, October 8. The New Yorker published a report on Tuesday morning that included multiple allegations of sexual assault dating back to the 1990s.
“Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” the producer’s rep said in a statement to Us. “Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual. Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.”
