Actress Ashley Judd, one of many women to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment or abuse, has revealed the harrowing way she claims to have escaped from the disgraced Hollywood producer.
Speaking to US journalist Diane Sawyer on ABC, Judd says she met Weinstein for what she assumed was a breakfast meeting at his hotel room in 1997.
Judd says the producer offered to give her a massage, and then asked for her to give him one when she declined.
Weinstein also allegedly pressured Judd to watch him shower.
“There’s this constant grooming, negotiation going on. I thought no meant no. I fought with this volley of noes, which he ignored,” she explained.
“Maybe he heard them as maybe, maybe he heard them as yeses. Maybe they turned him on.”
As the ABC reports, Judd then decided to strike a “deal” with Weinstein in order to escape.
“He just kept coming at me with all this other stuff. Finally, I just said ‘When I win an Oscar in one of your movies, OK?” she recounted.
“He said ‘When you get nominated’. I said ‘No, when I win an Oscar’. And then I just fled.”
The actress explained that no one had warned her about the alleged behaviour of Weinstein before she met with him. But she did feel uneasy when she learned he was in his private room.
“I remember the lurch when I went to the [hotel] desk and I said, ‘Mr Weinstein, is he on the patio?’ And they said ‘He’s in his room’, and I was like ‘Oh, you’re kidding me?”’ she recounted.
To date, approximately 54 women have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
