A-List stars condemn Hollywood 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’.
Both said they had not known about his alleged history of harassing women even though it went back decades.
The Hollywood establishment had been accused of ‘deafening silence’ because weinstein had helped to make their careers and supported the causes they cherished. But Miss Streep’s statement yesterday morning opened the floodgates to comments from A-list actresses Julianne Moore, Susan Sarandon, Glenn Close and Jessica Chastain. They paid tribute to the bravery of the ‘victims’.
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.
dame Judi, 82, won a best sup- porting actress oscar for the weinstein-produced Shakespeare In love and has said she owes him ‘for giving me my film career’ – and once got a fake tattoo of his name applied to her bottom as a joke.
In a statement, she said yesterday: ‘while there is no doubt that Harvey weinstein has helped and championed my film career for the past 20 years, I was completely unaware of these offences which are... horrifying and I offer my sympathy to those who have suffered, and whole-hearted support to those who have spoken out’.
Miss Streep thanked the ‘watchdog’ media for revealing what she claimed was an open secret in Hollywood. She worked with weinstein on films including The Iron lady, for which she won the best actress oscar in 2012. In her 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 weinstein 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 everybody
‘Behaviour is inexcusable’
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.’
She later posted a picture of
herself in her 20s and wrote: ‘This is the girl that was hurt by a monster. This is who you are shaming with your silence’.
Miss McGowan, who appeared in the horror film franchise 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 Julianne Moore said she stood by the alleged victims, tweeting: ‘Through their bravery we move forward as a culture, and I thank them.’ Susan Sarandon spoke of her ‘huge respect for ... all the women who broke their silence’.
Adding to the flurry of comments, Jessica Chastain said: ‘I’m sick of the media demanding only women speak up. What about the men?’ In a statement, Glenn 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’.
Yesterday former US TV reporter Lauren Sivan became the first accuser to give a television interview. She told NBC that the mogul ‘cornered’ her at a restaurant in Manhattan in 2007 and tried to kiss her. When she rebuffed him he allegedly blocked her way out and exposed himself. Miss Sivan, 39, said: ‘It was disgusting and kind of pathetic.’
Weinstein is married to British fashion designer Georgina Chapman, 41, and she is said to be standing by him.
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 £19million 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.