New York Daily News

Judd: Give Harv help and ‘love’

- BY RACHEL DeSANTIS Actress Selma Blair (above) is the latest woman to allege misconduct by director James Toback (inset), describing creepy encounter in his hotel room. Terence Cullen

ACTRESS SELMA BLAIR says disgraced filmmaker James Toback told her to take her top off in his hotel room and made a thinly veiled threat to have her kidnapped and tossed into the Hudson River if she didn’t keep quiet about their disturbing encounter.

Blair and “Spotlight” star Rachel McAdams joined Oscarwinne­r Julianne Moore and NBC host Natalie Morales, among more than 200 others, in telling Vanity Fair about their horrific encounters with the slimy “The Pick-up Artist” director.

The two actresses’ accounts came just one week after the Los Angeles Times exposed Toback’s alleged misconduct.

Blair, 45, revealed that she encountere­d Toback, 72, in the late ’90s during a business meeting arranged by her representa­tives.

Despite agreeing to meet in a hotel restaurant, Blair said, a hostess informed her that she’d have to meet him in his room to discuss his upcoming project, “Harvard Man.”

When Blair arrived in Toback’s hotel room, she says, he immediatel­y began making uncomforta­ble comments, including a bizarre offer to have her estranged father killed.

Still, Blair was put at ease by the fact that Toback told her they had a connection, something she'd never heard before. “I really believed that when he started to talk ... that he was going to be my mentor,” she told Vanity Fair.

Things allegedly took a turn, though, about 40 minutes into their meeting when he ordered her to perform a monologue naked — despite the fact that the scene took place in a courtroom.

She said she obliged, taking off her sweater, but quickly put it back on after he commented, “Wow, you need a lot of work.”

As she went to leave, she claims he began rubbing his genitals through his pants and asked her to have sex with him, telling her, “You have to do this for me. You cannot leave until I have release.”

Like many women who have come forward with stories about Toback, Blair says he asked to rub up against her leg and have her pinch his nipples while staring into his eyes.

“I felt disgust and shame, and like nobody would ever think of me as being clean again after being this close to the devil,” she said.

The actress says he then implied he’d have her kidnapped and thrown into the Hudson River if she ever spoke up about the encounter, alleging that he was prepared to do that to a “girl who went against me.”

McAdams, meanwhile, was a 21-yearold theater student in Toronto when she was asked to audition for “Harvard Man.”

She did, and the audition went well — so well, in fact, that Toback allegedly asked her to meet with him in his hotel room that same night to “workshop.”

Just like with Blair, McAdams’ meeting with Toback quickly turned sexual as he told her he had masturbate­d “countless” times since first seeing her earlier that day.

The “Mean Girls” actress, 38, says he demanded she read aloud passages from reviews of his movies, and disappeare­d to the bathroom — only to return to tell her he had just masturbate­d and wanted to see her pubic hair

“I just kept trying to normalize it — thinking, ‘This has to be some weird acting exercise,’” she said to Vanity Fair.

McAdams (photo left) says she left before things escalated further, but still feels “shame” for not escaping sooner.

Toback has denied the allegation­s, citing the fact that it would be “biological­ly impossible” for him to have taken part in such lewd behavior for so long because of his diabetic and heart conditions. ASHLEY JUDD’S message for disgraced moviemaker Harvey Weinstein — whom she’s accused of sexually harassment — might come as a surprise.

“What I would say to Harvey is, I love you and I understand that you are sick and suffering,” Judd told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in an interview that aired Thursday. “And there is help for a guy like you, too, and it’s entirely up to you to get that help.”

Asked if Weinstein’s acts merited prison time, Judd (photo) said, “If he’s a rapist, he should actually go to jail.”

Earlier this month, she recounted to The New York Times how Weinstein came on to her as an up-andcoming actress meeting the producer in his hotel room. Judd said she got out of his Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel room by bartering with him.

She was among the first of what is now more than 50 women who have come forward accusing Weinstein of sexual misconduct.

Weinstein has claimed he and Judd were close, pointing to a 1997 photo of them holding hands at a party. She said the smiles were a farce.

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