‘I saw drunk Weinstein maul women’ — Irish actress
IRISH women from the worlds of politics, fashion, film and entertainment have spoken for the first time about their experiences of inappropriate advances and physical touching.
Actresses Alison Doody and Sonya Macari, as well as Minister of State Helen McEntee, spoke as Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the body which presents the Oscars.
Ms Macari says she once saw the disgraced movie boss openly maul women at an Oscar’s week party, at one stage putting his hand inside his trousers, but she says nobody did anything.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent, Ms Macari said: “He was incredibly drunk. He was very dishevelled, very sweaty, his shirt was half open and he had the zipper of his pants down and he was mauling the women. They would pull themselves away and he would just keep at it. It was quite gross. His behaviour was so inappropriate and disgusting and yet nobody went up to him and said ‘what you are doing is wrong’.”
Former Bond girl Alison Doody said she was once asked to date a movie boss and then warned that rejecting him could affect her career: “He had seen me at a premiere and asked if I would accompa- ny him as his date to a movie premiere. I said no because I wasn’t comfortable putting myself in that position. It wasn’t so much the premiere itself but the connotations of what would be expected if I decided to go along and what could come after that. The person on the other end of the phone said OK but then called me back two minutes later to say: ‘Look, this person is not very happy about this. I am advising you to go.’ I said ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to stand my ground. I don’t want to go.’ And they said: ‘Well, Alison, you could lose out on an awful lot of work because of this’.”
Meanwhile, Helen McEntee, Minster of State for European Affairs, also spoke about her experiences, saying: “I’ve been in situations talking to someone and a guy would rest their hand on my backside .... now everyone is realising any of this type of behaviour is simply just not acceptable.”
In the wake of the shocking allegations against super-producer Harvey Weinstein, Niamh Horan spoke to Irish women about their experiences with him — and other men in positions of power