Lupito also Weinstein victim
The ‘12 Years a Slave’ actor speaks out about Weinstein abuse
Lupita Nyong’o has written an opinion piece for the New York Times, detailing several encounters with Harvey Weinstein in which the producer allegedly offered to help her career in exchange for sex.
The 12 Years a Slave actor wrote that she “felt sick in the pit of [her] stomach” after allegations by more than 50 women became public and she realised her alleged treatment was part of a “sinister pattern of behavior”.
In the piece , Nyong’o said she first encountered Weinstein while she was a student attending the Berlin film festival, where she was at a dinner with the producer.
Shortly afterward, she was invited to a screening at his home in Westport, Connecticut, after a dinner where Weinstein had become angry when she refused to drink a vodka and diet soda. After the dinner, the actor claimed, while Weinstein’s young children were watching a film, he asked Nyong’o to leave the room and let him give her a massage.
The actor said she “didn’t know how to proceed without jeopardising my future”, and invited Weinstein to see a production at Yale School of Drama. He could not make it but instead invited Nyong’o to a Broadway production. Nothing happened on that occasion but the next time they met — at a dinner in TriBeCa, New York — Weinstein propositioned her, the actor said.
“Wherever I looked, everyone seemed to be bracing themselves and dealing with him, unchallenged,” she added. “I did not know that things could change.”