When Me Too first started happening and Harvey Weinstein’s victims were tellings their stories publicly for the first time, many actresses were asked – cold – if they too had any Weinstein stories. Looking back, it’s admirable how many of the women who were not physically violated by Weinstein managed to gracefully put the focus onto Weinstein’s victims and their stories. Kate Beckinsale was one of those women. She waited to tell her story – which does not involve physical assault – until the day Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison. She posted this to her Instagram with a photo from the 2001 premiere of Serendipity. (Minor edits for spacing and obscenity):
These photos were taken at the premiere of Serendipity on October 5, 2001. We all refused to go because holding a premiere mere weeks after 9/11 with the city still smoking felt like the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible. But Harvey insisted. We flew into New York and somehow got through it.
The next morning Harvey called me and asked if I would like to bring my less than two year old daughter to his house for a playdate with his similar-aged daughter I said ok. I turned up and he immediately called for his nanny to take the babies to another room to play. I went to go with them and he said “No, you wait here .”
The minute the door closed he started screaming “you stupid f–king C-NT, you C-NT you ruined my premiere .” I had no idea what he was talking about and started to shake. He said,”If I am throwing a red carpet you get in a tight dress, you shake your ass you shake your t-ts you do not go down it looking like a f–king lesbian you stupid f–king c-nt .”
The shock made me burst into tears.I tried to say “Harvey,the city is on fire, people are still looking for their relatives none of us even felt the premiere was appropriate much less coming out dressed like it’s a bachelor party .” He said,”I don’t care -it’s my f–king premiere and if I want p-ssy on the red carpet that’s what I get”. Screaming. Livid. I managed to get myself and my child out of there and yes that was one of many experiences I had that there was no recourse for, and falls under no felony. But I WAS punished for it, and for other instances where I said no to him for years, insidiously and seeming irreversibly.
Hearing that he has gone to prison for 23 years is a huge relief to me on behalf of all the women he sexually assaulted or raped, and I hope will be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry. Having said that, the crimes that are not crimes,the inhumane bullying and sick covert abuse for which there is STILL no recourse no matter who you tell (and I did tell), these too need to go. I hope and pray that we as an industry can start to actually outlaw all abuses of power and expose them and eliminate them, for all genders, forever. And Rose,brava ❤
[From Kate Beckinsale’s Instagram]
Yes. She’s right. This is one of many explanations for why Kate’s career stalled, and it’s just further proof of what a disgusting, malignant, abhorrent person Weinstein was and still is. And Weinstein wasn’t alone and still isn’t alone in treating women this way, using this kind of disgusting verbal harassment, threats and more. Ugh. I feel so sorry for Kate and for every single woman who had to work with him or interact with him.
Photos courtesy of Instagram, WENN.
What really hurts about that story is how he knew exactly how to manipulate her to get her into his home, bring your daughter, have a playdate.
Then he made sure she couldn’t get to her child so he could make sure she wouldn’t be able to leave until he was ready for her to leave.
He deserves every minute of his sentence
And more.
I know, that part made a horrible thing so, so much worse.
100% agree with you. The playdate was manipulation. Gross
Indeed. You know why I believe her story so much? Because I have dealt with too many manipulative assholes like Weinstein. Certainly, not nearly as criminal or misogynistic as that dude, but still. Masters of the power play. You know they spend hours planning exactly how they will force you into a tight spot.
Wow. I’m glad she posted this, and so very glad he’s in jail. I hope the climate of sexual predation is changing forever. BTW, a friend posted an article on the “secret way a woman who feels threatened can let the bartender know” and I was like, “Why does it have to be secret? Can’t she say “I don’t want you anywhere near me. Leave me the F alone.” Who would ever advise a man about a secret, non-offensive way to get out of being harassed??!!
It’s for safety. I’ve never been assaulted for saying something like that, but different times when I was a teenager I was threatened, cursed at, and stalked for saying no. I have friends who’ve been spit on or hit for rejecting someone ungraciously. The level of entitlement some guys have is ridiculous.
Reminds me of a quote I read in The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker: “It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different–men and women live in different worlds…at core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.”
Oh ANNERS, gorgeous and slightly terrifying quote, it is so true.
Sometimes it has to be a secret because it’s dangerous for a woman to decline a man’s attention/advances/abuse. I understand your greater point and completely agree with it — women should be able to bluntly end harassment/abuse in any situation without any detriment to themselves — but women have been hurt and killed in those situations. It’s never a victim’s fault if they are hurt, but if they can avoid being hurt by any means necessary, I support them. Training those who work in the service industry to scan for signs of abuse/harassment/trafficking and to *respond* to what they sense/see/hear is just another tool individuals can use to avoid being hurt.
ETA: I focused on gender because your comment did, and women and young people are disproportionately harmed/killed in cases of sexual violence and trafficking, so that’s why these kinds of campaigns typically target women and youths. But I think it’s also important for a gender-neutral consideration of how bystanders respond to violence and fear of violence. Victims of harassment and abuse face silencing regardless of gender, so training to provide appropriate responses is still important.
Because sadly, women know that if you confront a man who is threatening you, the chances are, he could physically assault you or kill you. It sounds extreme but women have been killed for simply rejecting a man’s advances. It’s easier to find a non-offensive way to get out of the situation because if you bruise a man’s ego, there is no knowing how he will react.
Agree. I’m glad Kate got her daughter and got out safely. And I’m so glad she put this out there. Sadly, Weinstein is the tip of an enormous iceberg.
Ugh, god, luring her there under the false pretense of a play date for her two year old daughter is just so chilling to me. Absolute monster person for so so many reasons.
Yup. That is especially heinous. To bring her child into it.
Completely disgusting.
A small additional bit of justice and karma? His daughter referred to in the story is now an adult, and recently released documents/emails make pretty clear that his ex-wife and adult daughters immediately believed the survivors. Immediately. He will find no support there. (Although the fact that they (and his brother) has no problem believing immediately makes me feel more and more that Georgina Chapman is full of s**t with her denials).
That has to be incredibly difficult, being the child of a monster like this. I hope they all have support, and I appreciate them being upfront about their belief of the victims.
His 3 older daughters have disowned him. He’ll never see them again.
I’ve always said Georgina is full of s*** when it comes to her denials. Please, I knew about his disgusting ways in the 90s — before social media and everything, and I’m a nobody. You mean Georgina didn’t have people in her circle who warned her about him? Told her stories about him? Please. She knew 100% and did not care.
I have to agree What…Now —- I find Georgina as hard to believe as I do a mother’s denials about a husband’s abuse of their child. I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions, but I also think many of them either flat out know or have a strong suspicion and choose to ignore it.
Ugh he is disgusting.
This explains a lot about her career trajectory. And a lot of other actresses’. He ruined so many women’s lives and now he gets to spend the rest of his in prison. He can appeal all he wants but he will still be in jail during that time getting older and older.
I also remember her (I think it was her) saying that she had been warned by a male friend to avoid being alone with him. He somehow caught wind of that and essentially ended that friends’ career. I assume that happened not long after this incident.
I hope he rots.
God, I hope the talent whose careers were submarined by this scum get a second chance. This scum has literally altered movie history with the number of women he’s tried to ruin.
By the looks of some of the comments on her IG post, there are a lot of people who still don’t get it. The victim blaming is never ending. Gross.
I’m glad she shared her story so that we could see how much of a monster he was, even when he wasn’t physically violating someone.
The Instagram commenters who don’t get it demonstrate what Beckinsale so eloquently explained: Weinstein is just one of many. He raped, but the bullying behavior tolerated by men in society in the name of money and power keeps them rolling in money and power while their victims are marginalized and suffer repercussions to their lives and careers.
While Rose Magowen has gone to a dark place, I appreciate that Beckinsale acknowledged her dogged determination to take Weinstein down. She is the poster child for what can happen when everything is taken away from you because of sexual violence and gaslighting. Lots of women who go through what Weinstein put them through end up on drugs or dead. Many women end up dead, but they aren’t beautiful actresses. They are regular people, and the justice system doesn’t understand. Here’s to hoping this will begin change with this verdict.
I’m glad she shared this, and it’s sort of like what Angelina Jolie talked about in her essay this week. So often when people from certain marginalized groups speak up about their own or other members’ different abusive experiences, there’s a rush to victim-blame or minimize. To silence and tone-police with the fact that others have suffered more violent versions of whatever a woman is discussing, as if to imply that gratitude is required for violence not suffered if one has certain body parts. It’s part of the reason why girls and women learn to put up with a lot of bad things done either to themselves or other girls/women, and ignore warning bells that something we see other girls dealing with is not ok, only to (hopefully) realize later that what they experienced or saw actually would have been worth making waves about.
How she ended it was good: “Hearing that he has gone to prison for 23 years is a huge relief to me on behalf of all the women he sexually assaulted or raped, and I hope will be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry. Having said that, the crimes that are not crimes, the inhumane bullying and sick covert abuse for which there is STILL no recourse no matter who you tell(and I did tell), these too need to go. I hope and pray that we as an industry can start to actually outlaw all abuses of power and expose them and eliminate them, for all genders, forever.”
There is a grim but terrific book, “Hollywood’s Hard-Luck Ladies: 23 Actresses Who Suffered Early Deaths, Accidents, Missteps, Illnesses and Tragedies” by Laura Wagner. Reading it really makes you wonder how many of them really crashed because of creeps like this.
I took a time to read the instragram responses and it’s nauseating. People are demanding atittudes from HER. “Why not denouncing at the time it happens?”, “Why women sell themselves to be stars?” or “You’re not a real hero”. Sometimes I have the wrong feeling that the world is filled with people like the ladies here, but then something like that gives me a hard wake up call.
The world is honestly filled with women like us! All over the world there are women who want safety. We just can’t afford to hire bots like all the decrepits. XO 😘
Wow. And think of all the other people complicit in his retribution schemes. How can a single person have that much influence over everyone else. It is crazy and scary to think about.
@AANG you bring up a great point & it’s something that’s bothered me deeply…i haven’t seen mentioned yet: Weinstein didn’t get exposed till his power was waning in Hollywood. He had been successful, powerful & unstoppable since the early 90s…..but what it took (25 years later), after many bombs & not pulling in the bouquets of oscars like he used to, that he went down. Everybody fawned over him & wouldn’t date cross him not just bc of bad stuff he could do, but more so: what he COULD DO for them. Almost everybody knew. Oh, & remember Meryl Streep & “I’d like to thank god…..Harvey Weinstein.” And then she had the gall to say she didn’t know anything like that was going on. REALLY Meryl? See that’s interesting, since you warned both your daughters about him when they decided they wanted to act. If he hadn’t lost that track record, if he hadn’t had a slow down in success… Would this day, the expose, the trial, the verdict…have happened? It’s disturbing to me that it only started to unravel for him once his career was dying & he couldn’t get the gold.
Money, money, money which begets power and control over others. It’s not the money that’s evil. It is when a substandard human has money, and thus power, that that human is Allowed, empowered, excused, and/or protected to continue the evil they do. God help them, if like Weinstein, their money or their power leaves them.
Over and over we see that these men are BOTH bullies & sexual predators. They feel justified abusing in many forms.
He’s a revolting human being.
I know Rose McGowan gets a lot of the credit for exposing Weinstein, but Ashley Judd , Annabella Sciorra, Mira Sorvino, Emily Nestor, Lauren O’Connor, Asia Argento, and a host of famous and less-famous women also put themselves out there by name, and I don’t see many people acknowledging them. I think Rose has gotten a lot more attention about it, and partly because she continues to be damaged and outspoken about it. She’s done a lot of gatekeeping and backtracking and I think it’s all coming from a very difficult place in her, so I’m not here to judge. But it took a village of women to expose his misdeeds, and we should respect and acknowledge all of them, especially those who testified in the past month. I wish Rose peace. And for all of them, I hope the ruling brings them a sense of justice served. God knows it so rarely is.
(And good on Kate for her “lesbian” outfit–she is gorgeous no matter what, and that was a respectful way to deal with all that coercion in that moment.)
I agree that it took a lot of women coming forward, but Rose didn’t stop telling her story over and over and over. She was obsessed and people thought that she was crazy and a liar, and she wasn’t crazy nor was she lying. Everyone else stayed quiet after doing what they could. Many lost so much and knew that there was no way to push back without even greater personal cost and they kept silent in fear. She was so hurt that she had nothing to lose. I give her a lot of credit. Being that person isn’t easy, and it leaves you wounded.
This story would have been helpful years ago.
Yes. But the systemic system silencing women did not help them to come forward sooner. Do not victim blame
Years ago, it wasn’t for her to tell the story. He was already actively destroying her career and held too much power for her to go up against him. The studios would back him because his movies were profitable. Hindsight is really easy for you now. I hope you are never in the position that she was in. Victim blaming is insidious.
She mentioned in her post that she told people about his behaviour. Nothing was done.
@CC
People like you & comments like this are part of the problem……
I feel sorry for the people in your life…if there are any 🙄
It sure would be great if Hollywood would shine a light on the woman whose careers Harvey derailed, and get them into some productions, if they wish.
This is suppose to be a reply to @nikki*, but it somehow ended up here. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It shouldn’t have to be a secret, but you never know how a guy is gonna react. One time my friend was out with his girlfriend and a guy came up and hit on the girlfriend, the girlfriend made it clear she wasn’t interested, bluntly, and my friend was trying to diffuse the situation. My friend got sucker punched.
Thea, recently I’ve had 3 posts end up as replies in the wrong place. Not sure what’s going on?? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The awful thing is that Hollywood gives actresses such a short shelf life that it’s too late for all these talented women to have the careers they should have had. It’s heartbreakng.
He operated as a bomb. Everything she said in her post rings true in my ears from manipulation to explosion. And I can’t help but imagine what he put HIS wife through. I know many blame her, but if he handles clients with explosive and criminal behavior, how does he treat ‘things’ that are ‘his?’ I’m beginning to think she got away as soon as shit started going public. His focus would’ve been putting out fires and she knew it. Whatever. He’s a monster and he’s behind bars.
Was the movie she was promoting sexy? It was a romcom with John Cusack and I don’t remember anything even suggestive in the trailer why would her dressing sexy do anything for the demographic for that movie?
Am I forgetting the film maybe? This just seems odd. Maybe Weinstein just thought women are just their bodies no matter the film, he’s clearly that sick and hates women.
It was kinda like Sleepless In Seattle crossed with a much lighter Love Affair—lovers agree to see if their relationship is meant to be by luck. Kinda unbelievable, and drawn out, though the actors were good.
I’ve wondered for years why her career couldn’t seem to take off when she was so lovely and talented, and well….I think this explains a lot. Weinstein was a rapist in ever manner of the word. If he couldn’t assault their bodies, he went after their dignity, their humanity, and their work. I hope he dies miserably in that prison.
I bet he wouldn’t have his shit if it was Marchesa. And that is why I have a real problem with Georgina. She used his premieres as marketing for her clothes
I mean, setting aside the heinous rape and sexual assault for one moment, just think about how awful this must have felt to her psyche at the time. To everyone who had to stand there and get screamed at by Harvey Weinstein. People knew for DECADES that he was an abusive sh-thead. When he wasn’t sexually assaulting women, he was screaming at people whose careers he held the ultimate control over. And people let him get away with it! Everyone laughed it off and said, “Oh, it’s just Harvey Weinstein, he’s a tough guy, but he gets results.”
How many “tough guys” did we allow to freely abuse others under the guise of “getting results”? Again, setting aside sexual assault, just the f-cking despair of having to be the person who’s screamed at like this, in such a disgusting and derogatory way. And the feeling of shame that sweeps over you after because you burst into tears and started to cry and somehow you feel like you “let” them “get” to you. This is soul destroying stuff. It shatters people for decades if not their whole lives. That’s the purpose after all, to break someone down so that you can feel like you’ve punished them enough for doing something against your wishes.
And people laughed at this stuff. They made jokes about it. “Oh that Harvey Weinstein with that bad temper haha isn’t it so funny that a grown man screams and acts in ways we wouldn’t even accept from a toddler?? LAWL. Anyway, here’s a list of women we’re all pretty sure slept with him to get acting roles and Oscars. SUCH A MERCURIAL FIGURE, right?”
They should put him in the general prison population. Then he won’t be “confused” any more about what people want and don’t want to have happen to them.