A week after a section Hollywood actresses and women leveled allegations against powerful Hollywood producer and studio executive Harvey Weinsten, Kenyan academy award winning actress Lupita Nyongo has come forward to share her own experience with the embattled studio executive.
In an OP-ED piece at the New York Times, Lupita has revealed that she met the 65 year old studio Executive when she was still a student at the Yale school of Drama when she attended film festival in the German capital of Berlin.
“As an aspiring actress, I was of course eager to meet people in the industry but cautious about strangers, and the intentions of men in general. So I tried to vet this famous producer by asking my dinner-table companions what they knew of him. A woman who was a producer herself cautiously advised me to “keep Harvey in your corner.” She said: “He is a good man to know in the business, but just be careful around him. He can be a bully.” Lupita wrote.
Lupita goes further to reveal that after exchanging contacts with the studio executive he invited her to a restaurant where he tried to forcefully convince her to take a Vodka and diet water instead of her preferred Juice. After the drinks, Lupita and Weinstein were supposed to attend a screening of one of his films in his house.
“Harvey led me into a bedroom — his bedroom — and announced that he wanted to give me a massage. I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times … He agreed to this and lay on the bed. I began to massage his back to buy myself time to figure out how to extricate myself from this undesirable situation. Before long he said he wanted to take off his pants. I told him not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely uncomfortable. He got up anyway to do so and I headed for the door, saying that I was not at all comfortable with that. “If we’re not going to watch the film, I really should head back to school,” I said.” Lupita wrote.
After the incident the Studio executive again invited Lupita for a film screening in New York where he insisted that they would first have dinner at a restaurant.
“We ordered drinks and starters. Again he was offended by my nonalcoholic beverage choice but he didn’t fight me on it as hard. Before the starters arrived, he announced: “Let’s cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal.” I was stunned. I told him I preferred to eat in the restaurant. He told me not to be so naïve. If I wanted to be an actress, then I had to be willing to do this sort of thing. He said he had dated Famous Actress X and Y and look where that had gotten them.”
Lupita also revealed that after she won her infamous 2014 academy award for best supporting actress for her role in 12 years a slave the studio executive offered her role in one of his movies as a way of trying to apologize which she turned down.
Lupita joins notable Holywood actresses including Angelina Jolie ,Rose Mcowan Ashley Judd and French actress Judith Godreche who are accusing Weinstein of manipulation and sexual harassment.
Weinstein who has since been fired from the Weinstein company and is being investigated by police in the US over rape and sexual harassment.
