Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie said Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed them early in their acting careers, according to a New York Times report.
Paltrow says that when she was just 22 years old, Weinstein, whom she looked up to as a mentor, asked her to come over to his suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, where he put his hands on her and suggested they go to the bedroom for massages.
“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” she told the Times.
Paltrow, 45, said she rejected his advances and told then-boyfriend Brad Pitt what had happened. After Pitt confronted Weinstein at a theater premiere, the movie mogul “screamed” at Paltrow and warned her not to tell anyone else, the actress said.
“I thought he was going to fire me,” said Paltrow, who was starring in the Miramax film “Emma” at the time.
“He screamed at me for a long time,” she said. “It was brutal.”
Jolie said she too was sexually harassed by Weinstein in a hotel room in the late 1990s. She rejected his advances and refused to work with him again.
“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,” Jolie wrote in an email to the Times. “This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable.”
A slew of women have now come forward claiming Weinstein sexually assaulted or harassed them, with some actresses saying they believe their careers suffered because they rejected him.
“Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” the producer’s spokesperson said in a statement. “Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”
Source: Page Six