Damned by Paltrow and Jolie

I was only 22, a kid, and I was petrified Gwyneth Paltrow

GWYNETH Paltrow broke her silence over the scandal yesterday – to reveal she was also targeted by the Hollywood mogul.

The Oscar-winning actress said she was left ‘petrified’ when he tried to get her into bed when she was only 22, and had just won a lead role in one of his films.

When she told her then boyfriend – actor Brad Pitt – about the encounter he confronted the producer at a film premiere, and told him never to touch her again.

Miss Paltrow said Weinstein then berated her for speaking out, and claimed he had continued to bully her for years.

Despite the sordid episode in the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, the actress continued to praise the mogul in public, and said she was ‘expected to keep the secret’.

She told how she was summoned to his hotel suite after she was cast in the lead role in the 1996 adaptation of the Jane Austen novel Emma, which catapulted her to stardom.

The meeting apparently began normally with discussions about the film but he then tried to massage her and invited her into his bedroom.

Miss Paltrow said she rejected his advances and left immediately but feared he would fire her, saying: ‘I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified.’

She had previously thought of him as a mentor, she said, and drove away from the hotel thinking: ‘I thought you were my Uncle Harvey.’ After Brad Pitt had confronted the mogul, Miss Paltrow said Weinstein then berated her. She said: ‘ He screamed at me for a long time … It was brutal.’

Miss Paltrow, now 45, did however continue to work with Weinstein and his film company Miramax. She was even dubbed the ‘first lady of Miramax’ when she won a Best Actress Oscar for the 1999 film Shakespeare In Love for which Weinstein acted as a producer.

But she told the New York Times their relationship deteriorated over the years, saying: ‘He was alternately generous and supportive and championing, and punitive and bullying.’

She had previously revealed that early in her career ‘someone suggested we finish a meeting in the bedroom’ but had never named the man.

The actress said she had decided to speak out to support the women who had already come forward, saying: ‘We’re at a point in time when women need to send a clear message that this is over. This way of treating women ends now.’