HOLLYWOOD
KATE Beckinsale has told how what she thought was meant to be a business meeting with Harvey Weinstein in a hotel allegedly turned into a sordid bid to get her into bed.
The British actress claimed the producer opened the door wearing a bathrobe and tried to ply her with booze when she was a 17-year-old schoolgirl.
She rejected his unwanted advances and left the room.
Kate spoke as it was revealed the Met Police are investigating a sexual abuse claim against Weinstein that allegedly happened in London in the 80s. It will be passed on to its child sex unit. And officers in New York launched a review into claims of a sexual assault in 2004.
Kate also told how she had several furious spats with the movie boss that she believes damaged her career.
Speaking about the moment Weinstein, 65, allegedly tried to prey on her, the 44-year-old said: “I was called to meet Harvey Weinstein at the Savoy Hotel when I was 17. I assumed it would be in a conference room which was very common. When I arrived, reception told me to go to his room. He opened the door in his bathrobe.
“I was incredibly naive and young and it did not cross my mind that this older, unattractive man would expect me to have any sexual interest in him. After declining alcohol and announcing I had school in the morning I left, uneasy but unscathed.
“A few years later he asked me if he had tried anything with me in that first meeting. I realised he couldn’t remember if he had assaulted me or not. I had what I thought were boundaries. I said no to him professionally many times over the years, some of which ended up with him screaming at me calling me a c*** and making threats, some of which made him laughingly tell people, ‘Oh, Kate lives to say no to me.’
“It speaks to the status quo in this business that I was aware that standing up for myself and saying no to things undoubtedly harmed my career.
“I would like to applaud the women who have come forward, and to pledge that we can create a new paradigm where everyone who has in the past shrugged and said, ‘Well, that’s just Harvey /Mr X/insert name here’ will realise that we in numbers can affect
Kate: Appalling, disgraceful, and very very wrong
real change.” Kate, the daughter of late Porridge star Richard Beckinsale and actress Judy Loe, 70, made her claims in a lengthy Instagram post. She also claimed a former worker at Weinstein’s Miramax movie company lost his career after he told a rising star to be wary of the producer. Kate, who is