Sharon Stone slams Weinstein – but risks #MeToo backlash as she insists... ‘You can’t charge a person with murder when they’ve only got a parking ticket’
HOLLYWOOD predator Harvey Weinstein should be locked up, says Sharon Stone, but she has warned against punishing all men accused of sexual misbehaviour in the same way.
In a frank interview with The Mail on Sunday’s Event magazine today, the actress says: ‘In every crime there are misdemeanours and felonies, and I think if someone’s committed a misdemeanour they can’t be treated like they’ve committed a felony. You can’t charge someone for murder when they’ve got a parking ticket.’ Her comments echo those of Matt Damon, who was criticised by #MeToo campaigners for saying there is a ‘difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation’. Ms Stone – famous for her sexually charged scenes in the 1992 movie Basic Instinct – condemns Weinstein, saying: ‘I hope he goes to jail,’ adding that the producer, who has been accused of rape, is ‘coarse and mean and violent and abusive’. She adds: ‘He thinks he’s a big martyr but he’s a pisher [a nobody]’. In a forthright assertion of how women should deal with predatory men, Ms Stone says: ‘We have two legs. You can leave a room. You can say “stop it”. You have an opportunity not to participate.’
She added: ‘[Harassment] doesn’t start when you get to Hollywood. It starts when you’re little. Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for the generations of women who came before us who no one stood up for at all. Women like my grandmother who was beaten by her husband almost every day. I stand up for them.’
Ms Stone was speaking ahead of her new series Mosaic, a six-part murder mystery on Sky Atlantic next month.