Accusers: Weinstein excused lewd acts as showbiz norm
Aspiring actresses say he preyed on their dreams of stardom
NEW YORK — Harvey Weinstein preceded an alleged rape with reassurances that he’d had a vasectomy, one accuser testified Wednesday.
Another accuser at Weinstein’s New York City trial said the one-time Hollywood titan tried trading movie roles for sex, claiming the lewd offer happened all the time in the film business.
Both were aspiring actresses in their early 20s when they met Weinstein more than 15 years ago, and both say he preyed on their vulnerabilities and dreams of stardom.
Choking back tears, Tarale Wulff told jurors there was no stopping the much larger Weinstein as he grabbed her by the arm, pushed her onto a bed and raped her at his apartment in 2005, during what was supposed to be an audition. Wulff, now 43 and a model, said she froze, thinking that would make it “easier to get through, to get past it.”
Dawn Dunning testified that, the year before, Weinstein put his hand up her skirt and fondled her genitals during a meeting in his hotel suite about her fledgling acting career.
At another meeting, Dunning said, he offered to put her in three movies, but only if she had sex with him and his assistant.
“When he said that, I kind of laughed, I thought he was kidding, and he had kind of a crass sense of humor,” Dunning testified. “But when I started laughing, he … started screaming at me. He said, ‘you’ll never make it in this business, this is how this industry works.’ ”
Dunning, now 40, said Weinstein went on to namedrop actresses Salma Hayek and Charlize Theron, implying they had done similar things to achieve success — something both women have strongly denied.
Hayek has said she had to fight off Weinstein’s constant harassment and bullying. Theron was upset when some accusers said he implied they had slept together.
Wulff and Dunning’s experiences with Weinstein are not part of the criminal charges against him, but their testimony could be a factor in whether he goes to prison at the end of his landmark #MeToo-era trial.