Bond girl: He stared at me like I was a piece of meat
Bond girl Lea Seydoux yesterday revealed how Harvey Weinstein ‘jumped’ on her and tried to kiss her after inviting her to his hotel room.
The French actress, who starred in Spectre, said the encounter took place after her first meeting with the movie mogul, at a fashion show.
She said: ‘He wanted to meet me for drinks and insisted we had to make an appointment that very night.
‘This was never going to be about work. He had other intentions – I could see that very clearly.
‘We met in the lobby of his hotel. His assistant, a young woman, was there. All throughout the evening, he flirted and stared at me as if I was a piece of meat. He acted as if he were considering me for a role. But I knew that was bull **** . I knew it, because I could see it in his eyes. He had a lecherous look. He was using his power to get sex.
‘He invited me to come to his hotel room for a drink. We went up together. It was hard to say no because he’s so powerful. All the girls are scared of him. Soon, his assistant left and it was just the two of us. That’s the moment where he started losing control.
‘We were talking on the sofa when he suddenly jumped on me and tried to kiss me. I had to defend myself. He’s big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him. I left his room, thoroughly disgusted. I wasn’t afraid of him, though. Because I knew what kind of man he was all along.’
She added, in a piece written for the Guardian, that she has met him many times since then and seen him working on other actresses.
She said: ‘We are in the same industry, so it’s impossible to avoid him. I’ve seen how he operates: the way he looks for an opening. The way he tests women to see what he can get away with.
‘He also doesn’t take no for an answer. I once went with him to a restaurant and when he couldn’t get a table he got angry and said: “do you know who I am? I am Harvey Weinstein.” That’s the kind of man he is.
‘I’ve been at dinners with him where he’s bragged openly about Hollywood actresses he has had sex with.
‘He’s also said misogynistic things to me over the years. “You’d be better if you lost weight,” he said. That comment shocked me.
‘one night, I saw him in London for the Baftas. He was hitting on a young woman. Another time, at the Met Life ball, I saw him trying to convince a young woman to sleep with him. Everyone could see what he was doing.
‘That’s the most disgusting thing. Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything. It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career. That’s only possible because he has a huge amount of power.’
She said the problem is rife across the industry, and claimed that she has come across the same behaviour from directors.
She said she had to push away one director after he tried to kiss her, another told her ‘I wish I could f*** you’, while another watched intently while filming ‘very long sex scenes that lasted days’.
Weinstein’s predatory behaviour was revealed in a memoir by the heiress to Guinness seven years ago. In it, Ivanna Lowell claimed Weinstein burst in on her and a friend and demanded a massage from them.
The 51-year-old, who worked for the producer at his firm Miramax Books in the 1990s, also alleged that he once chased her around a desk.
In her 2010 memoir, entitled ‘Why not Say What Happened?’, the aristocrat said the massage incident took place one night when he turned up at her apartment unannounced. Lowell, daughter of the late author Lady Caroline Blackwood, wrote: ‘The scene was comical: Harvey lying spread-eagle, dwarfing the bed like Gulliver pinned down by midgets, and [a friend] and I laughing nervously, still edging as far away as possible.’
Talking about another incident, she wrote: ‘[Weinstein] would call me into his office under some pretext... his office door would be slammed shut and he would playfully chase me around his desk.
‘He doesn’t take no for an answer’ ‘He would chase me around his desk’
Writing on Facebook, Lowell, who dated Weinstein’s younger brother Bob, said the producer threatened to sue her over her memoir claims.
She said: ‘When my book was first published, Harvey called me up, screaming, and said that I made him look like a pervert. I replied “Yes, so?”
‘He threatened to sue me, and then both Harvey and Bob called me a liar.’
This week she said: ‘I left out a lot of sordid details because I still considered Bob a friend and I didn’t realise the extent and consequences of Harvey’s sickening ways. This whole thing has left me reeling.’