I ran to flee Weinstein as he gave me a ‘neck massage’ says Helena
Kerhys Reilly
HELENA Bonham Carter has revealed she had to run away from Harvey Weinstein after he started groping her neck.
The British movie star, 53, said she did not know the Hollywood producer, 68, was a sex offender at the time. But her instinct was to flee after she saw him “treat some people badly”.
Helena, who worked with the now-jailed Weinstein on The King’s Speech a decade ago, failed to say when the encounter took place.
But she told Louis Theroux’s Grounded podcast: “I wasn’t aware of him pursuing people against their will, I wasn’t aware certainly of rape. I was aware that he would make passes at people and he did make a pass at me and I just said no and that was the end of it.
“He was also a bully and he obviously molested people – it was partly, I think, sociopathic. I saw him treat some people so badly and there was no compassion there, that was what disturbed me. He literally laid a hand on me, that’s all, he was trying to give me a massage of my neck and I knew this wasn’t going well so I ran and said no, or got to the other side of the room.
Shocker
“I haven’t spoken up about it because I kind of feel everything has been said about him.”
Helena also spoke of unpleasant encounters with other men in the movie industry, including British director Michael Winner, who died in 2013.
She said: “Michael Winner was a shocker. I was 16 and auditioning. He wanted me to take my coat off so he could see my shape.”
She jokingly added that her exhusband, director and producer Tim Burton, who she split from in 2014, would “ignore” her while listening to the same advice from actor Johnny Depp.
Helena said: “In the end I realised if I had a good idea I should give it to Johnny.
“If I gave it to Johnny, Johnny would mention it to Tim and then it was a marvellous idea.
“If I mentioned it, it would be an absolutely c**p idea. We worked our way through it.”