Celebrity News

Harvey Weinstein responds to Salma Hayek’s sexual harassment claims

The disgraced film producer said he "does not recall" pressuring Hayek into doing a sex scene with her female co-star.

Harvey Weinstein has responded to Salma Hayek’s allegations of sexual harassment during the making of her 2002 film Frida.

The actress claims that the disgraced film producer frequently harassed her while she was filming the biopic, and alleges that he forced her into filming a gratuitous sex scene.

“Mr. Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for the filming,” a spokesperson for Weinstein said. “However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms. Hayek with Geoffrey Rush.”

The statement continued: “All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who have witnessed the event have a different account of what transpired.”

In a piece for the New York Times, the Oscar-nominated actress claims she spent years saying no to the mogul following his demands for sexual activity with her.

“I was so excited to work with him and that company. In my naïveté, I thought my dream had come true. He had validated the last 14 years of my life. He had taken a chance on me – a nobody. He had said yes,” she writes.

“Little did I know it would become my turn to say no.”

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/941062058744909824/photo/1

Salma (C) is pictured alongside Harvey Weinstein and Kelly Bensimon back in 2003.

“No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with.”

“No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage.”

“No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman.”

She also said that every refusal was met with “Harvey’s Machiavellian rage” and one time, she claims, “in an attack of fury” he said to her: “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t.”

Hayek’s allegations follow on from other testimonies from women in Hollywood, including Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan who have also claimed sexual impropriety on Weinstein’s part.

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