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For Years, He Was My Monster… says Salma Hayek

Hollywood Actress Salma Hayek reveals horrifying allegations of abuse at hands of ‘monster’ Harvey Weinstein. She says she was subjected to unwanted sexual harassment by the producer, who allegedly threatened to kill her in a fit of rage when she turned him down.

She said she repeatedly said no to the producer’s sexual advances over a number of years, at “hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly”.

“With every refusal came Harvey’s Machiavellian rage,” “I don’t think he hated anything more than the word ‘no’,” said Salma Hayek

But his attempts to exert power over Hayek went beyond demands for massages and sex. While he was producing her dream project, the 2002 film Frida, Weinstein insisted that the star add an unscripted sex scene with another woman, complete with full-front nudity. Hayek believed that complying was the only way she would get the movie made, and since she was already five weeks into production, she worried about disappointing all of the “talented people” she’d convinced to join her project, including Ashley Judd, Edward Norton, and director Julie Taymor.

“Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney — that saved me from being raped,” Hayek told

She said he also constantly made it a challenge for her to get Frida made. Eventually, in order to make sure the film would see the light of day, she hired lawyers for a “bad faith” defense against Weinstein.

Hayek noted in her op-ed that Frida found an audience and won accolades, not to mention two Oscars, despite Weinstein’s relentless dismissals of the film and his lack of support. The success should have paved the way for more female-led features. It didn’t, but, for a while at least, it was a beacon of hope. Hollywood so rarely makes movies about brilliant women -, especially by brilliant women. Now we know that even the gold standard of moderate progress can be tainted by the whims of a sick man.

Hayek’s sexual harassment story is just one of at least 30 accounts that have been made public against the once-powerful producer.
Weinstein has said that all sexual acts were consensual, while his legal team has called a number of the other allegations “false”.

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