Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o is the latest woman to come forward with allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein in a New York Times op-ed published Thursday.
“I have been following the news and reading the accounts of women coming forward to talk about being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and others,” she wrote. “I had shelved my experience with Harvey far in the recesses of my mind, joining in the conspiracy of silence that has allowed this predator to prowl for so many years … I had felt very much alone when these things happened, and I had blamed myself for a lot of it, quite like many of the other women who have shared their stories.”
Lupita details several meetings with the disgraced producer, starting with a 2011 awards ceremony in Berlin when she was a student at the Yale School of Drama. “A woman who was a producer herself cautiously advised me to ‘keep Harvey in your corner,’” Lupita wrote. “She said: ‘He is a good man to know in the business, but just be careful around him. He can be a bully.”
The actress says Weinstein invited her to lunch, where he tried to coerce her into drinking alcohol. “‘Let’s cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we can have the rest of our meal.” I was stunned. I told him I preferred to eat in the restaurant. He told me not to be so naïve. If I wanted to be an actress, then I had to be willing to do this sort of thing. He said he had dated Famous Actress X and Y and look where that had gotten them.'”
“‘You have no idea what you are passing up,’” he said. “With all due respect, I would not be able to sleep at night if I did what you are asking, so I must pass,” I replied.”
The producer later invited Lupita to a private screening at his home in Connecticut. Minutes into it, Lupita wrote, Weinstein brought her up to his bedroom and told her he was going to give her a massage.
She explained how she offered to give him one instead and left his home when he attempted to remove his pants.
“I share all of this now because I know now what I did not know then. I was part of a growing community of women who were secretly dealing with harassment by Harvey Weinstein,” she wrote. “But I also did not know that there was a world in which anybody would care about my experience with him.”
Lupita also wrote, “Now that we are speaking, let us never shut up about this kind of thing. I speak up to make certain that this is not the kind of misconduct that deserves a second chance. I speak up to contribute to the end of the conspiracy of silence.”
Earlier this month, several reports alleged the Hollywood producer had sexually harassed or assaulted a number of women, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, Rosanna Arquette, Mira Sorvino, and Italian actress Asia Argento—said they also were harassed by Weinstein, who was fired from The Weinstein Company in October.
Read Lupita’s entire op-ed here.
