GWYNETH PALTROW
When Gwyneth Paltrow was 22 years old,
Weinstein hired her for the lead in the Jane
Austen adaptation ‘Emma’. Before the
shooting began, he summoned her to his
suite at the Peninsula Beverly Hills where
Weinstein placed his hands on her and
suggested they head to the bedroom for
massages. “I was a kid, I was signed
up, I was petrifi ed.” She refused his
advances, and confi ded in Brad
Pitt, her boyfriend at that time.
Pitt confronted Weinstein, and
soon after, the producer warned her
not to tell anyone else about the
episode. “I thought he was going
to fi re me,” she said.
REESE WITHERSPOON
Reese Witherspoon
has spoken fi ercely
about making the
required changes
in Hollywood.
Making it clear
that exploitation was rampant in Hollywood,
Reese said, “I have my own experiences
that have come back to me very vividly,
and I found it really hard to sleep,
hard to think, hard to communicate.
True disgust at the director who
assaulted me when I was 16
years old, and anger that
I felt at the agents and
the producers who made
me feel that silence was a
condition of my employment.”
She added, “I’ve had multiple
experiences of harassment and
sexual assault. Because this kind
of abuse is epidemic. People in
our industry know that we have
our own complicity, hypocrisy
and avoidance of this issue to
examine and to answer for, but
we cannot let that prevent
us from immediately doing
what needs to be done to
build a better and safer
industry. We should have
acted long ago. We must
act now.”ANGELINA JOLIE
In the late 1990s, Jolie
rejected Weinstein’s
unwanted advances in a
hotel room. “I had a bad
experience with Harvey
Weinstein in my youth,
and as a result, chose
never to work with him
again and warned
others when they
did. This behaviour
towards women in any
fi eld, any country, is
unacceptable,” she
said.