«He had taken a chance on me — a nobody. He had said yes,» Hayek wrote. «Little did I know it would become my turn to say no.»
Salma Hayek came forward in an op-ed in the New York Times with stories of how she had to repeatedly tell Harvey Weinstein “no.”
Hayek, 51, revealed she was urged by friends, including Ashley Judd, to open up about her experiences with the Miramax mogul, but didn’t because she thought she had “brainwashed” herself “into thinking that it was over” and that she “survived.”
While working on Miramax’s “Frida,” for which she earned an Oscar nomination, Hayek learned her good friend Weinstein, 65, wasn’t the person she thought he was.
“I was so excited to work with him and that company. 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,” Hayek wrote. “Little did I know it would become my turn to say no.”
“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,” she wrote, adding, “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 my getting naked with another woman.”
Hayek quickly learned Weinstein didn’t take “no” for an answer. Hayek claimed Weinstein dragged her “out of the opening gala of the Venice Film Festival, which was in honor of ‘Frida,’” so that she could attend a private party with him and some models, who she later learned were “high-priced prostitutes.”
She also claimed he threatened her. “’I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,’” she recalled Weinstein saying.
Out of alleged revenge, Weinstein forced her to have the script completely rewritten, the movie recast and more. Hayek got everything done, which only further angered the disgraced movie producer and caused him to constantly “berate” Hayek’s skills.
“It was soul-crushing because, I confess, lost in the fog of a sort of Stockholm syndrome,” she admitted.
Hayek continued to win her production battles with Weinstein, fighting for theatrical release and ultimately scoring his company two Oscars.
“I still didn’t see any joy,” she wrote. “He never offered me a starring role in a movie again.”
