Just like Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'O did weeks ago, Mexican actress Salma Hayek used the New York Times platform to share her story and the uncomfortable moments that, according to her, she lived while working with American film producer and former film studio executive, Harvey Weinstein. The 65-year-old man has been accused by more than 40 women of sexual harassment and assault.
Via the New York Times, Hayek wrote an essay titled “Harvey Weinstein Is My Monster Too.” The actress pointed out that she didn't want to share her story, but when she heard other women addressing the issue she "faced her cowardice."
"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."
Hayek revealed that when she had the opportunity to portray Mexican icon Frida Kahlo in the biopic drama film directed by Julie Taymor, "Frida" - a film purchased by Miramax, a company described by her as the "Weinstein empire," all she "knew of Harvey at the time was that he had a remarkable intellect, he was a loyal friend and a family man."
Hayek was excited to work with him and Miramax, when all of the sudden her dream became a nightmare. "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 added.
The Mexican actress also claims that Weinstein threatened her with death. “I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,” he said, according to her via New York Times. "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," wrote Salma.
According to her, the only thing he noticed was that she wasn't sexy in the movie. "He would let me finish the film if I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman. And he demanded full-frontal nudity," she revealed. "He had been constantly asking for more skin, for more sex."
"Even though 'Frida' eventually won him two Oscars, I still didn’t see any joy. He never offered me a starring role in a movie again. The films that I was obliged to do under my original deal with Miramax were all minor supporting roles. Years later, when I ran into him at an event, he pulled me aside and told me he had stopped smoking and he had had a heart attack. He said he’d fallen in love and married Georgina Chapman, and that he was a changed man. Finally, he said to me: 'You did well with ‘Frida’; we did a beautiful movie.'"
Salma finished her essay thanking everyone listening to all the sexual harassment experiences and added that she hopes that "speaking out will shed light on why it is so difficult, and why so many of us have waited so long."
Read the full story here.
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