Salma Hayek reveals horrifying allegations of abuse at hands of 'monster' Harvey Weinstein
The Hollywood actress speaks out about her experience on 'Frida'
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Your support makes all the difference.Actress Salma Hayek says she was subjected to unwanted sexual advances by producer Harvey Weinstein, who allegedly threatened to kill her in a fit of rage when she turned him down.
Joining actresses like Rose McGowan, Ashley Judd and Lupita Nyong'o, Hayek detailed her alleged experiences to the New York Times. The producer has denied all allegations against him.
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".
Every refusal was met with his "Machiavellian rage," she said, and in one "attack of fury" he said: "I will kill you, don't think I can't," she claimed.
"Knowing what I know now, I wonder if it wasn’t my friendship with them — and Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney — that saved me from being raped," Hayek told the newspaper.
Hayek say she was approached by reporters last fall about her experiences with Weinstein, but chose not to discuss them publicly because she thought she had made peace with her past.
"In reality, I was trying to save myself the challenge of explaining several things to my loved ones: Why, when I had casually mentioned that I had been bullied like many others by Harvey, I had excluded a couple of details," she explained.
Hayek worked with Weinstein on a biopic of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, which she had steered.
The film's production was a constant push and pull between Weinstein and Hayek, she says, and after he agreed to produce the film she says she began getting unwanted advances from him.
He allegedly asked her to let him watch her take a shower, give him a massage, perform oral sex and get naked with another woman.
Hayek firmly said "no" to all of these requests and says she paid the price in Weinstein's rage.
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" defence against Weinstein.
Of course, Weinstein fired back with a list of demands "to clear himself legally."
He reportedly wanted a free rewritten script, $10m in financing, plus an A-list director and cast.
While Hayek met Weinstein's demands, he persisted.
He coaxed her into doing a full-frontal nude sex scene in Frida, she says - even though it wasn't in the script.
Hayek ended up experiencing a "nervous breakdown" when she was about to film the scene. She says she was "crying and convulsing" when she thought of doing this section of the movie, just to please Weinstein.
Hayek took tranquilisers to calm herself down.
"As you can imagine, this was not sexy, but it was the only way I could get through the scene," she recalls.
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 have called a number of the other allegations "false".