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Emma Thompson weighed in on the scandal surrounding Harvey Weinstein, who multiple women in Hollywood have accused of sexual misconduct.
“I didn’t know about these things, but they don’t surprise me at all and they’re endemic to the system anyway,” the British actress, 58, said during an interview with BBC News on Wednesday, October 12. “What I find sort of extraordinary is that this man is at the top of a very particular iceberg. I don’t think you can describe him as a ‘sex addict.’ He’s a predator. But what he’s as it were, the top of the ladder of is a system of harassment and belittling and bullying and interference and what my mother would have referred to in the olden days as ‘pestering.’ ’Is he pestering you?’ That’s the word we used to use in the olden days, if you recall.”
The Love Actually actress continued, “This has been part of our world, women’s world, since time immemorial. So what we need to start talking about is the crisis in masculinity, the crisis of extreme masculinity, which is this sort of behavior, and the fact that it is not only OK, but it also is represented by the most powerful man in the world at the moment.”
Thomson added that “of course” there are “many” men like Weinstein, 65, behaving inappropriately in Hollywood. “Maybe not to that degree,” the Sense and Sensibility star noted. “Do they have to all be as bad as him to make it count? You know, does it only count if you really have done it to loads and loads and loads of women? Or does it count if you do it to one woman once? I think the latter.”
The disgraced filmmaker was fired from his own company after several actresses, including Angelina Jolie, Kate Beckinsale and Gwyneth Paltrow, came forward claiming he sexually harassed them. Although the movie mogul has denied all allegations made against him, he reportedly left L.A. on Wednesday, October 11, and flew to Arizona to seek treatment for sex addiction.
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