Salma Hayek made serious claims against Harvey Weinstein in an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which she said the Hollywood producer threatened to break her kneecaps. “He told me he wanted to kill me,” the actress said of Weinstein during production of the movie "Frida." (via THR) "He said to [Frida director] Julie Taymor, 'I am going to break the kneecaps of that "c word."'"
Hayek also talked about her feelings in the New York Times exposé in which she detailed her experience with Weinstein. “I felt like my pain was so small” in comparison to the others, she said of her story (via Deadline). “I thought, ‘There’s no point for me to talk because it happens to everyone.'” Salma eventually realized that “when [women] come together and unite with each other, it’s not about drama. It’s not about pain. It’s about something that can move powerfully and make change happen.”
Following the new reports, a spokesperson for Harvey Weinstein issued an apology and denied threatening Hayek's life. “As in most collaborative projects, there was creative friction on Frida, and in this case, it served to drive the project to perfection," the statement published by Vanity Fair read. "It wasn’t an easy process and Mr. Weinstein apologizes for the way he may have approached the situation. He hopes all involved can at least agree that the movie was fantastic."
"Mr. Weinstein apologizes for his boorish behavior following a screening of Frida; prompted by his disappointment in the cut of the movie—and a reason he took a firm hand in the final edit. However, his conflict was with Julie Taymor not Ms. Hayek. Mr. Weinstein never fought with Ms. Hayek on set and this comment does not reflect how he feels about her; he doesn’t recall ever saying such an awful thing."
"Over the 20 years plus since the movie’s success, Ms. Hayek and Mr. Weinstein’s daughters have had play dates, their families have enjoyed time together when running into each other on vacations, and the two have had dinners where they pitched and discussed projects such as Ms. Hayek asking Harvey to distribute her movie Evelyn and Mr. Weinstein pitching her a remake of The Lives of Others with Penelope Cruzabout a South American dictatorship."
"Nevertheless, Mr. Weinstein deeply apologizes to Ms. Hayek for any pain she has suffered as a result of his behavior or comments. Mr. Weinstein has great respect for her as an actress and a producer and thinks there are many more Frida’s for her to produce in the future and that she doesn’t need anyone to help her - She’s terrific by herself."
In her editorial with the New York Times, Hayek expressed how she thought she had gotten past the situation, but in reality she had not. "I had brainwashed myself into thinking that it was over and that I had survived; I hid from the responsibility to speak out with the excuse that enough people were already involved in shining a light on my monster. I didn’t consider my voice important, nor did I think it would make a difference," Salma wrote."I am inspired by those who had the courage to speak out, especially in a society that elected a president who has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women and whom we have all heard make a statement about how a man in power can do anything he wants to women."
"In my naïveté, I thought my dream had come true. He had validated the last 14 years of my life. He had taken a chance on me — a nobody. He had said yes. Little did I know it would become my turn to say no," she wrote. "No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with. No to me taking a shower with him."
"No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to me getting naked with another woman. No, no, no, no, no … And with every refusal came Harvey’s Machiavellian rage," she continued.
Salma also revealed that she received a death threat from the movie mogul. “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,” she said. "In his eyes, I was not an artist. I wasn’t even a person. I was a thing: not a nobody, but a body."
"Halfway through shooting, Harvey turned up on set and complained about Frida’s 'unibrow.' He insisted that I eliminate the limp and berated my performance. Then he asked everyone in the room to step out except for me. He told me that the only thing I had going for me was my sex appeal and that there was none of that in this movie. So he told me he was going to shut down the film because no one would want to see me in that role."
Harvey Weinstein denies the allegations against him from Hayek. “Mr. Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for the filming,” said the spokesperson in a statement to Us Weekly. “However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms. Hayek with Geoffrey Rush. All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who have witnessed the event have a different account of what transpired.”
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