Lawrence: I lined up naked at audition
JENNIFER LAWRENCE has told how she was subjected to a humiliating “naked line-up” to audition for a film, as the torrent of allegations about sexual harassment in Hollywood flows after Harvey Weinstein’s fall from grace.
Weinstein, 65, was yesterday in rehabilitation in Arizona, but dialled into a meeting of The Weinstein Company board in Los Angeles. He was expected to contest his firing from the company he founded with his brother Bob, 62, in 2005.
However, Weinstein yesterday resigned from the board, reportedly before he could be fired. Although he was sacked from the company on Oct 8, he had retained his board position.
Last night, a crew member of television series The Mist, produced by Bob Weinstein, accused the younger brother of sexually harassing her. Amanda Segel told Variety magazine that repeated overtures from Bob continued on and off for about three months in 2006 until her lawyer intervened.
Weinstein denied any improper behaviour.
“Bob Weinstein had dinner with Ms Segel in LA in June 2016,” his lawyers said in a statement to Variety. “He denies any claims that he behaved inappropriately at or after the dinner.”
Harvey Weinstein was, according to the TMZ website, confident he can rebuild his reputation and return to work. However, the list of women accusors is growing. The agent of Aishwarya Rai, the Bollywood superstar and former Miss World, told how he attempted to get Rai on her own in the 2000s.
Lawrence told Elle magazine’s Women in Hollywood awards on Monday that she, in the early days of her career, “was told by producers of a film to lose 15lbs in two weeks”.
She said: “During this time a female producer had me do a nude line-up with about five women who were much, much, thinner than me. We are stood side-by-side with only tape on covering our privates.
“After that degrading and humiliating line-up, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet.”
Lawrence said she told another producer the weight loss demands were not appropriate. “He said he didn’t know why everyone thought I was so fat, he thought I was ‘perfectly ----able’.”
At the same event, Reese Witherspoon told how she was sexually assaulted at the age of 16.