Jennifer Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon And Other Actresses Describe Being Harassed And Assaulted
Since the New York Times and the New Yorker broke allegations of sexual harassment and assault against famed movie producer Harvey Weinstein, dozens of women have come forth to say that Weinstein raped, groped, propositioned or otherwise sexually abused them. And dozens of other women, both inside and outside Hollywood, have used the #MeToo hashtag on social media to "give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem" of sexual harassment and assault.
Some actresses and entertainers have gone further, describing what men in their industry did to them in the hopes of exposing and shaming abusers and ending a culture of silence in Hollywood. Here are a few of their stories.
Jennifer Lawrence
At Elle's Women in Hollywood event Monday night, Lawrence described being degraded and objectified early in her career.
"When I was much younger and starting out, I was told by the producers of a film to lose 15 pounds in two weeks," she recalled. "One girl before me had already been fired for not losing enough weight fast enough, and during this time a female producer had me do a nude lineup with about five women who were much, much thinner than me. And we all stood side by side with only paste-ons covering our privates."
The story gets worse.
"After that degrading and humiliating lineup, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet," Lawrence said, almost making light of the harrowing situation.
Lawrence said that on the same project, the director suggested that she star in a porno, among other inappropriate comments, and that a producer said she was "perfectly fuckable." "In a dream world, everyone is treated with the same amount of respect," she added. "But until we reach that goal, I will lend my ear, I will lend my voice to any boy, girl, man or woman who does not feel like they can protect themselves."
Reese Witherspoon
Also at Elle's Women in Hollywood event, Witherspoon said that she was assaulted by a director at the age of 16 and that agents and producers made her feel that she had to keep quiet about it.
"I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I've been having about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier."
"[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment," she added.
"And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn't. I've had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don't speak about them very often."
[People]
Witherspoon added that hearing other women's stories of being assaulted or abused made her feel less alone made a promise to younger women in Hollywood: "I feel really, really encouraged that there will be a new normal," she said. "For the young women in this room, life is going to be different because we're with you, we have your back."
Björk
On Facebook, Icelandic singer and actress Björk described being harassed and assaulted by a Danish director. (She didn't name the director, but many assumed him to be Lars von Trier, who directed Björk in the 2000 film "Dancer in the Dark.")
i am inspired by the women everywhere who are speaking up online to tell about my experience with a danish director . because i come from a country that is one of the worlds place closest to equality between the sexes and at the time i came from position of strength in the music world with hard earned independence , it was extremely clear to me when i walked into the actresses profession that my humiliation and role as a lesser sexually harassed being was the norm and set in stone with the director and a staff of dozens who enabled it and encouraged it . i became aware of that it is a universal thing that a director can touch and harass his actresses at will and the institution of film allows it . when i turned the director down repeatedly he sulked and punished me and created for his team an impressive net of illusion where i was framed as the difficult one . because of my strength , my great team and because i had nothing to lose having no ambitions in the acting world , i walked away from it and recovered in a years time.
[Facebook]
Later, after von Trier denied mistreating her, Björk detailed her experience, which included unwanted touching, graphic and repeated propositioning and retaliation in the press when she rebuffed the director's advances:
i feel it is the right time especially now when it could make a change . here comes a list of the encounters that i think count as sexual harassment :
1 after each take the director ran up to me and wrapped his arms around me for a long time in front of all crew or alone and stroked me sometimes for minutes against my wishes
2 when after 2 months of this i said he had to stop the touching , he exploded and broke a chair in front of everyone on set . like someone who has always been allowed to fondle his actresses . then we all got sent home .
3 during the whole filming process there were constant awkward paralysing unwanted whispered sexual offers from him with graphic descriptions , sometimes with his wife standing next to us .
4 while filming in sweden , he threatened to climb from his room´s balcony over to mine in the middle of the night with a clear sexual intention , while his wife was in the room next door . i escaped to my friends room . this was what finally woke me up to the severity of all this and made me stand my ground
5 fabricated stories in the press about me being difficult by his producer . this matches beautifully the weinstein methods and bullying . i have never eaten a shirt . not sure that is even possible .
6 i didnt comply or agree on being sexually harassed . that was then portrayed as me being difficult . if being difficult is standing up to being treated like that , i´ll own it .
[Facebook]
Björk ended her first post with a statement of solidarity and hope for other survivors of sexual abuse in the film industry:
let's hope this statement supports the actresses and actors all over
let's stop this
there is a wave of change in the world
[Facebook]
Molly Ringwald
In an essay for the New Yorker, the actress, author and singer described multiple incidents of sexual abuse in Hollywood.
When I was thirteen, a fifty-year-old crew member told me that he would teach me to dance, and then proceeded to push against me with an erection. At fourteen, a married film director stuck his tongue in my mouth on set…
In my twenties, I was blindsided during an audition, when I was asked by the director, in a somewhat rhetorical manner, to let the lead actor put a dog collar around my neck. This was not even remotely in the pages I had studied; I could not even fathom how it made sense in the story. The actor was a friend of mine, and I looked in his eyes with panic. He looked back at me with an "I'm really sorry" expression on his face as his hands reached out toward my neck. I don't even know if the collar ever made it on me, because that's the closest I've had to an out-of-body experience. I'd like to think that I just walked out, but, more than likely, there's an old VHS tape, disintegrating in a drawer somewhere, of me trying to remember lines with a dog collar around my neck in front of a young man I once had a crush on. I sobbed in the parking lot, and when I got home and called my agent to tell him what happened, he laughed and said, "Well, I guess that's one for the memoirs…"
Ringwald also recalls a studio executive (Slate says it's Jeffrey Katzenberg) telling a journalist, "I wouldn't know [Molly Ringwald] if she sat on my face." She ends her essay with a call to action for the gatekeepers of the entertainment industry:
My hope is that Hollywood makes itself an example and decides to enact real change, change that would allow women of all ages and ethnicities the freedom to tell their stories — to write them and direct them and trust that people care. I hope that young women will one day no longer feel that they have to work twice as hard for less money and recognition, backward and in heels. It's time. Women have resounded their cri de coeur. Listen.