Harvey Weinstein C-bombed Kate Beckinsale for Not Slutting it Up Enough at His Post-9/11 Movie Premiere and I Am Blind With Rage
Caption on Kate Beckinsale's Instagram post:
These photos were taken at the premiere of Serendipity on October 5,2001. We all refused to go because holding a premiere mere weeks after 9/11 with the city still smoking felt like the most insensitive, tone deaf,disrespectful idea possible .But Harvey insisted. We flew into New York and somehow got through it. The next morning Harvey called me and asked if I would like to bring my less than two year old daughter to his house for a playdate with his similar aged daughter I said ok. 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.I tried to say “Harvey,the city is on fire, people are still looking for their relatives none of us even felt the premiere was appropriate much less coming out dressed like it’s a bachelor party .” He said,”I don’t care -it’s my fucking premiere and if I want pussy on the red carpet that’s what I get”.Screaming. Livid. I managed to get myself and my child out of there and yes that was one of many experiences I had that there was no recourse for,and falls under no felony.But I WAS punished for it, and for other instances where I said no to him for years,insidiously and seeming irreversibly.
Hearing that he has gone to prison for 23 years is a huge relief to me on behalf of all the women he sexually assaulted or raped, and I hope will be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry. 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.And Rose,brava
As the Harvey Weinstein case went on and the jury kept coming back with more questions, there were credible reports that the government hadn't made their case and he might be acquitted. Which would've been a crushing disappointment, but them's the breaks. You take your lumps. Not every case is provable beyond the "reasonable doubt" standard. And no matter how important it is to stop creepshow monstrous assholes from abusing their power, we can't flush due process down the toilet in order to do so. You do NOT want to live in that world.
But justice prevailed. Civilization did not take an L. The system worked. And if you happen to be one of the people who thinks Weinstein getting sentenced to, for all intents, die in prison for doing what was probably standard practice in Hollywood - something he was known for and it was treated like a punchline - maybe this will change your mind.
Sweet mother of god, what an insufferable, nut-tugging bully this bucket o' guts is. October 5, 2001 was 24 days after the Twin Towers collapsed. There will still crews sifting through the rubble pulling out bodies. Survivors and responders were still being treated for wounds, injuries and dust inhalation. There were MISSING posters wallpapering lower Manhattan. Dozens of funerals being held every day. Youth sports leagues across the river with no one to coach because they were all presumed dead. Americans everywhere but especially in NYC were still walking around in a kind of fugue state, waiting for the next attack and wondering if life would ever get back to some semblance of normal.
And into that scene, this megalomaniac not only debuted a light romantic comedy romp, he repeatedly C-bombs his star for questioning whether it was maybe not such a good idea. And bitches her out of not showing tittay and ass, because that's what the folks needed at a time like that to pull them out of their funk. Mostly though, he used that moment to abuse a mom practically in front of her toddler and brag about how he's powerful enough to produce all the pussy-on-demand his cholesterol-clogged heart desires. Just a goddamned monster of the highest order.
I'm sure Beckinsale is taking crap for speaking out now. A quick perusal of the comments under this post found a few along that are along the lines of, "Too little, too late." But like she says, she did speak out at the time. The problem is, nobody listened. Guys like Weinstein choose their victims carefully. A guy like him would never drop C's on his dental hygenist or demand she shake her ass during his cleaning, because he has no power over her. He did have power over Beckinsale and his other accusers and he abused it to nth degree. And not enough bad things can happen to him going forward. Not. Enough. Bad. Things.
I stand with Kate.