Kate Winslet and Judi Dench condemn movie mogul’s ‘horrifying offences’
Pals hope his disgrace won’t damage her career
Hollywood A- listers finally broke their silence over Harvey weinstein last night – almost a week after he was exposed as an alleged sexual predator.
Stars including dame Judi dench and Meryl Streep condemned the film mogul’s behaviour as ‘horrifying’ and ‘disgraceful’.
The Hollywood establishment had been accused of ‘deafening silence’ after a string of claims emerged last week.
But the statement by Miss Streep yesterday morning opened the floodgates for a string of other female stars to come forward. As the chorus of disapproval grew:
Kate winslet, Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, and Jessica Chastain paid tribute to the bravery of the ‘victims’;
Stars said they had not known about weinstein’s alleged history of harassing women even though it went back decades;
Matt damon was accused of helping a newspaper ‘kill off’ a story about assault claims;
MPs demanded the movie mogul be stripped of his CBE.
weinstein, 65, was sacked from the board of his movie firm The weinstein Company after a New york Times expose revealed he had paid off at least eight women for complaints about his lewd behaviour. Although the mogul has apologised for the pain he has caused, he denies many of the claims against him.
Kate winslet labelled the producer’s actions ‘reprehensible and disgusting’ as she added her support for weinstein’s alleged victims. She said: ‘The way Harveyy weinstein has treated these vulnerable, talented young women is NoT the way women should ever r EVER deem to be acceptable or r commonplace in ANy workplace.
‘I had hoped that these kind off stories were just made up rumourss – maybe we have all been naive.’
dame Judi, 82, won a best sup- porting actress oscar for thee weinstein-produced Shakespeare e In love and once got a fake tattoo o of his name applied to her bottom m as a joke. In a statement, she said d yesterday: ‘while there is no doubtt that Harvey weinstein has helpedd and championed my film career forr the past 20 years, I was completelyy unaware of these offences whichh are... horrifying and I offer my sym- pathy to those who have suffered, d, and whole-hearted support too those who have spoken out’.
Miss Streep thanked the ‘watchdog’ media for revealing what she claimed was not known by all inn Hollywood. She worked with weinstein on films including The Iron lady, for which she won the e best actress oscar in 2012. In her r acceptance speech she jokingly called him ‘God’.
The 68-year-old said in a statement: ‘The disgraceful news about Harvey weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported.
‘one thing can be clarified. Not everybody knew.’ describing wein- stein as ‘exasperating but respectful’, she added: ‘I didn’t know about these other offences: I did not know about his financial settlements with actresses and colleagues; I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate, coercive acts. And if every- body knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would have neglected for decades to write about it. The behaviour is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar.’
The allegations against weinstein first surfaced in a New york Times article on Thursday. His alleged victims included an actress, a model and two of his assistants – one based in london.
Actress Ashley Judd, 49, claims weinstein asked her to watch him shower naked in his lA hotel room in the 1990s. Rose McGowan, who revealed she was given a
£76,500 settlement for an undisclosed incident involving Weinstein, wrote on Twitter at the weekend: ‘Ladies of Hollywood, your silence is deafening.’
The actress, who appeared in the horror film Scream, called on the all-male board of The Weinstein Company to step down as ‘the men of Hollywood need to know they own no woman’. Yesterday A-lister Miss Moore said she stood by the alleged victims, tweeting: ‘Through their bravery we move forward as a culture, and I thank them.’ Miss Sarandon spoke of her ‘huge respect for ... all the women who broke their silence’.
Adding to the flurry of comments, Miss Chastain said: ‘I’m sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men?’ In a statement, Miss Close said she was ‘angry at the conspiracy of silence’.
Emma Thompson is said to have been one of the few who stood up to Weinstein and yesterday she called him a ‘predatory man’. ‘Male predatory behaviour is everywhere, not just in the film industry,’ she told the BBC. ‘Speaking out is the only way we’ll tackle it’.
Some of Hollywood’s leading men were dragged into the affair amid claims they helped kill a story about the mogul’s alleged behaviour. Journalist Sharon Waxman alleged Matt Damon and Russell Crowe, who had both starred in Weinstein movies, called her in 2004 to stop a negative report she was working on. Last night Miss McGowan accused Damon of being a ‘spineless profiteer who stays silent’.
Nobody for Damon or Crowe was available for comment last night.
PRINCE HaRRy’s exgirlfriend Cressida Bonas will be hoping the tide of sleaze allegations engulfing Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein doesn’t damage her acting career before it’s barely begun.
Pudding-faced Weinstein, 65, who has been accused of sexual harassment by a string of actresses, was said to have been ‘mentoring’ aristocratic Cressida, 28.
The ambitious dance graduate suddenly went from am- dram productions and plays performed in tiny theatres above pubs to roles in major Hollywood films.
Weinstein handed her a part in his £19 million costume drama Tulip Fever and publicly showered her with praise.
‘Cressida is great in Tulip Fever and people will see what a fantastic actress she is — so beautiful, too,’ the New yorker gushed after casting her as a socialite in the 17th-century romance. ‘It will be the first of many, many roles for her, I’m sure. I 100 per cent get the sense from her that she has no interest in celebrity and wants to be an actress.
‘she is really hard-working and not taking advantage of any media profile.’ speaking at a 2015 London screening of another film made by his company, Big Eyes, attended by Cressida, he said: ‘she’s not here to get her picture in the paper, she’s here to come see Big Eyes and support me.
‘I didn’t cast her because she is linked to Prince Harry, I cast her because she was perfect in her audition. I’ll cast her again and so will a lot of people. When the movie comes out, people will see.’
sadly, Tulip Fever has still not been released in this country, but tonight Cressida is due to attend the premiere of Hollywood comedy horror film Double Date, in which she has a role.
a friend of Cressida insists: ‘she was not mentored by Weinstein. she was cast in one of his films and scarcely met him.’
yesterday, a spokesman for Cressida declined to comment on her working relationship with Weinstein. There is no suggestion that Weinstein has been accused of sexually harassing Cressida.