WEINSTEIN TRIED TO DISCREDIT WOMEN OF COLOUR: HAYEK

Hollywood star Salma Hayek, an attendee at the on-going Cannes Film Festival, believes that disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein only responded to her and fellow actor Lupita Nyong’o’s sexual harassment claims because women of colour are ‘‘the easiest to get discredited”.

Hayek, 51, was one of the innumerable women who came forward last year to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment over decades. The producer issued denials following Hayek and Nyong’o’s revelations, while he had not responded to dozens of others who had also shared their stories.

“He only responded to two women, two women of colour,” said Hayek to Variety during the Women In Motion panel discussion at Cannes. “It was a strategy by the lawyers, because we are the easiest to get discredited. It is a well-known fact, if you are a woman of colour, people believe what you say less. So, [Weinstein] went attacking the two women of colour, in hopes that if he could discredit us, he could then maybe discredit the rest,” she added.

Nevertheless, Hayek believes that Weinstein has cast a long shadow over the industry. “The men are terrified. The predators are hiding and terrified. You feel it. It’s a very palpable atmosphere,” she added.

The actor hopes that the #MeToo movement (against sexual predators in every walk of life) will offer a chance to men to reexamine their own roles, both in the film industry, and in society as a whole.

“It’s a very exciting time for men now. Men have the opportunity, which is so beautiful, to rethink what does it mean to be a man,”

she said.

PHOTO: MATT WINKELMEYER/ GETTY IMAGES/AFP Salma Hayek says predators in Hollywood are scared