As the Harvey Weinstein case winds down and the former head of The Weinstein Company heads to prison for 23 years, new stories are still emerging about the former producer’s behavior. While Kate Beckinsale says she wasn’t sexually harassed or assaulted by Harvey Weinstein, she did reveal a post 9/11 story that is still fresh on her mind nearly 20 years later. Probably because she remembers Harvey Weinstein calling her a “cunt.”
In her words, the year she starred opposite John Cusack in the romantic charmer Serendipity, the premiere happened in 2001 shortly after the 9/11 attacks. In a detailed post, the actress revealed she and some of her co-stars wanted to cancel the premiere but that Harvey Weinstein insisted that the show must go on.
She chose a demure white suit and tie for the occasion, detailed in her Instagram post:
The premiere went off without a hitch, but little did she know, Harvey Weinstein was not happy about her clothing choice at Serendipity’s premiere. She says under the guise of setting up a playdate, he used the opportunity to repeatedly describe her using c-bombs and other language about her body. Per Kate Beckinsale:
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 fucking CUNT, you CUNT 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 tits you do not go down it looking like a fucking lesbian you stupid fucking cunt.’ The shock made me burst into tears.
In the post, she said she tried to defend her choice of costume, noting that post 9/11 wasn’t really the time for sultry looks, but according to her he didn’t want to hear it. She later touched base on the Me Too movement and Harvey Weinstein going to prison, noting that this sort of abuse is still happening in some corners of Hollywood.
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.
The old trope of certain personalities being difficult to deal with has been a part of Hollywood’s story and its lore for a long time. I was watching THR’s writer’s roundtable some months ago and they were asked about this type of personality, with many of them stating there's no room for this behavior anymore. As a result, this type of personality has started to fade out as the times have changed in the industry. Twenty years ago, this wasn't the case.
Anyway, the point is, one related thing from the interview I learned from The Two Popes writer Anthony McCarten is that some people who worked with Harvey Weinstein actually had worked clauses into their contracts in order to enable them to get paid more if Harvey Weinstein yelled at them about something. He said he personally never worked for The Weinstein Company for that reason.
I just thought I don’t want to be a victim of what I know he’s done with other people. You know, when you hear that someone who’s done one film with him then insists on a clause in the contract a ‘non-screaming contract’ that if Harvey screams at you, you get this amount of reimbursement. And I thought, life is way too short.
The story from Kate Beckinsale came just a few hours after Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Harvey Weinstein is currently 67 years old, and if he serves his full sentence, he will be 90 years of age before he gets out of jail.
In addition, the story also comes just a few short days after Jennifer Aniston was sort of brought into the Harvey Weinstein narrative after evidence of an email chain came out in which Weinstein glibly mentioned he thought Aniston should be killed. Women including Ashley Judd, Marvel actress Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose McGowan and more have all shared their Harvey Weinstein stories as well.
