Molly Ringwald wrote in an op-ed for The New Yorker on Tuesday, October 17, that she was sexually assaulted by a director when she was just 14.
In a piece titled “All the Other Harvey Weinsteins,” the Pretty in Pink star, 49, detailed her own experiences in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal.
“I have had plenty of Harveys of my own over the years, enough to feel a sickening shock of recognition,” the former child star admitted.
While her own experience with the disgraced former studio boss doesn’t involve being jumped on by the producer in his hotel room — as so many other stars have detailed since The New York Times published a damning expose on October 5 alleging three decades of sexual harassment and assault — she writes about a “tense, awkward moment” with Weinstein, 65, while shooting Strike It Rich in 1990.
“Thankfully, I wasn’t cajoled into a taxi, nor did I have to turn down giving or getting a massage,” she writes. “I was lucky.”
The former teen star goes on to detail her experiences growing up on sets, where she was often made to feel “demeaned or exploited.”
“When I was 13, a fifty-year-old crew member told me that he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against me with an erection,” she recalled. “When I was 14, a married film director stuck his tongue in my mouth on set.”
“At a time when I was trying to figure out what it meant to become a sexually viable young woman, at every turn some older guy tried to help speed up the process,” she added, pointing out that this occurred despite having very protective parents. “I shudder to think of what would have happened had I not had them.”
The Riverdale actress wrote that she has never talked about these incidents publicly because “stories like these have never been taken seriously.”
“Women are shamed, told they are uptight, nasty, bitter, can’t take a joke, are too sensitive. And the men? Well, if they’re lucky, they might get elected President,” she continued, adding that she hoped sharing stories like this will lead to real change. “It’s time.”
