Lauren Holly opened up about her encounter with Harvey Weinstein several years ago and accused the former studio exec of sexual misconduct.
“At the time, he was the most powerful person in Hollywood. He could make a career. People were winning awards. Everything seemed normal when I walked into the [hotel] room,” Holly, 53, recalled while appearing on the Canadian talk show The Social on Monday, October 16. “He had a big, silver bucket of champagne in the living room part of the suite and my first thought was, ‘Oh my gosh. I’m really important. Harvey Weinstein has champagne for me, this is very exciting. I think I”m going to make more movies with him.’ The whole time he’s talking and it never stopped … What he had going on, what projects were coming, what he thought I would be right for.”
The NCIS star claimed that the Miramax producer then began behaving inappropriately. “He dropped his robe, went into the bathroom in front of me and began to use the toilet. All the time talking. Now at this point, my head’s exploding,” she remembered. “He keeps the conversation going, he finishes, he turns on the shower, he gets in the shower, he’s continually talking to me. he’s in the shower washing himself, leaning out, asking me for responses. My head is going crazy at this point. I don’t know. He’s acting like the situation is normal. He’s acting like we’re having a normal encounter. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Am I just a prude? Am I supposed to be more open-minded?’ I didn’t quite know how to handle myself t that moment.”
Holly became uncomfortable after the movie mogul got out of the shower. “He dried himself, did not put on the robe and came toward me,” the Dumb and Dumber actress alleged. “When he came toward me, everything changed. The adrenaline rush I felt, I wanted to flee, I was scared. He told me I looked stressed. He said he thought maybe I could use a massage. Maybe I could give him a massage. I began sort of just babbling like I was a child. I think it was just fear. I said, ‘I don’t know how to give a massage. I don’t have a massage license. Maybe if I call the front desk we can get a masseuse to come here.’ Like I didn’t know what to do, honestly.”
“He began to get angry and I knew I began to get really afraid, to be honest. I had to get out of there. He told me I would make a bad decision if I got out of there,” she continued. “That it would be bad for me, bad for my career, that I needed to keep him as my ally. And I pushed him and ran. And the thing about it is, don’t forget, I’m in my 30s. I had been around, and I was scared.”
After the alleged incident, the Picket Fences alum went to a dinner party and told “other influential people in Hollywood” what had happened. “I arrived crying, I had hives. They noticed immediately,” she remembered. “[They] asked me what had happened. I told them and their response was, ‘Did he touch you? Were you raped?’ I said, ‘No.’ And they said, ‘Then you need to keep your mouth shut, because it’s Harvey Weinstein.’”
Holly joins a long list of women in Hollywood, including Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mira Sorvino and Rose McGowan, to speak out about the alleged mistreatment they received while working with Weinstein.
As previously reported, The New York Times published an exposé on Thursday, October 5, detailing nearly 30 years of sexual misconduct allegations against the Oscar winner, who was fired from his own company amid the scandal and left by his estranged wife, Georgina Chapman. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ board held an emergency meeting on Saturday, October 14, and voted to revoke the studio boss’ membership.
Weinstein has since denied all allegations made against him. “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein,” his spokesperson Sallie Hofmeister said in a statement to Us Weekly. “Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.”
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The filmmaker reportedly flew to Arizona on Wednesday, October 11, to seek treatment for sex addiction.
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