Over 50 women have come out against Harvey Weinstein with assault allegations and Salma Hayek has just detailed her experiences with the producer in an op-ed for The New York Times. Titled “Harvey Weinstein is My Monster Too,” Hayek recalls her experiences filming the movie Frida, where Weinstein threatened to kill her and forced her to film a sex scene.
The op-ed details her entire experience working with Weinstein, but it becomes especially scary when she gets into the creation and filming of the movie Frida. At one point, Weinstein demanded a sex scene with full-frontal nudity from Hayek. “He offered me one option to continue,” Hayek said. “He would let me finish the film if I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman. And he demanded full-frontal nudity.”
The day the scene was supposed to be shot, Hayek recalled taking a tranquilizer to get through filming. “My mind understood that I had to do it, but my body wouldn’t stop crying and convulsing. At that point, I started throwing up while a set frozen still waited to shoot. I had to take a tranquilizer, which eventually stopped the crying but made the vomiting worse. As you can imagine, this was not sexy, but it was the only way I could get through the scene.”
Her narrative continues to get worse, detailing Weinstein’s rage against her for the success of the film despite his attempts to keep the movie from the box offices. “Even though Frida eventually won him two Oscars, I still didn’t see any joy. He never offered me a starring role in a movie again. The films that I was obliged to do under my original deal with Miramax were all minor supporting roles.” At one point, Weinstein threatened to kill Hayek after dragging her out of the gala for Frida at the Venice Film Festival. “The range of his persuasion tactics went from sweet-talking me to that one time when, in an attack of fury, he said the terrifying words, ‘I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,'” Hayek recalled.
Hayek concludes her personal experience with the question: “But why do so many of us, as female artists, have to go to war to tell our stories when we have so much to offer? Why do we have to fight tooth and nail to maintain our dignity?” She includes some statistics about men and women in the film industry and how we need to fight for equality and stop allowing women to be devalued.
After the publication of the op-ed on Wednesday, Harvey came forward with a statement to PEOPLE magazine denying the allegations Hayek illustrated. In the statement, Weinstein, “denies all of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma.”
Weinstein also mentions the sex scene Hayek claimed was forced. “Mr. Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for the filming,” the statement said. “However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms. Hayek with Geoffrey Rush.”
Weinstein concluded the statement saying, “All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired.”
There are so many claims in Hayek’s narrative that are similar to those of other celebrities that have come forward. I hope Hayek feels more relieved that her story is out in the open and Weinstein is aware of the way his actions impacted yet another woman on his list of victims.