Italian actress Asia Argento has added her name to the list of women accusing Harvey Weinstein of inappropriate sexual behavior.
The XXX star tells the New Yorker she kept her mouth shut about her experience with the disgraced movie mogul over fears he would “crush” her if she spoke out.
The 42-year-old tells the magazine, “I know he has crushed a lot of people before. That’s why this story – in my case, it’s 20 years old, some of them are older – has never come out.”
Mia Farrow’s journalist son Ronan, who wrote the New Yorker expose which was published on Tuesday (10Oct17), also tracked down former aspiring actress Lucia Evans, who has accused Weinstein of sexual abuse.
She told Farrow she was first approached by Weinstein in 2004 at New York club Cipriani Upstairs, and lured to his Miramax office with promises of movie scripts, but the producer forced himself on her.
“I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t’,” she recalled. “I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.
“He’s a big guy. He overpowered me. I just sort of gave up. That’s the most horrible part of it, and that’s why he’s been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like it’s their fault.”
Actresses Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette have also gone on the record to detail allegations of Weinstein’s sexually inappropriate behavior. Sorvino, who won an Oscar for her work in Miramax’s Mighty Aphrodite, claims the movie boss regularly “harassed her” for a sexual relationship, even showing up at her apartment in the mid-1990s.
“He started massaging my shoulders, which made me very uncomfortable, and then tried to get more physical, sort of chasing me around,” she claims.
Meanwhile, Arquette alleges Weinstein tried to intimidate her into a sexual situation in his hotel room.
Farrow’s expose in the New Yorker also features excepts from an audio recording, in which a man purported to be the 65-year-old film executive admits to groping Italian model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez.
Weinstein has denied the allegations of non-consensual sex. A spokesman for the movie mogul says, “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.”
The sex scandal started last week (ends06Oct17) following the publication of a New York Times expose, which detailed the movie boss’ alleged bad behavior and depicted him as a serial sexual harasser.
The article was supported by quotes from actress Ashley Judd, who claimed Weinstein had asked her to massage him and watch him take a shower during a breakfast meeting in his hotel suite.
Weinstein has since apologized for his past actions, revealing he is in therapy in a bid to resolve his issues.
He announced he was taking a leave of absence from his production company on Thursday (05Oct17), and on Sunday (08Oct17), the board members terminated his involvement with The Weinstein Company.
Frequent collaborators like Meryl Streep and Dame Judi Dench have released statements attacking Weinstein, while applauding the women who have come forward with sexual harassment and abuse allegations.
