Kate Winslet has called the allegations surrounding the film producer Harvey Weinstein “deeply shocking” and has admitted to having heard similar accounts during her time in Hollywood, but having hoped they were without foundation.
In a statement released to Variety, the actor – who won an Oscar in 2009 for The Reader, a film produced by The Weinstein Company – called the allegations “deeply shocking” and praised the “incredibly brave” women who have spoken out.
“The fact that these women are starting to speak out about the gross misconduct of one of our most-important and well-regarded film producers, is incredibly brave and has been deeply shocking to hear,” the statement began.
“The way Harvey Weinstein has treated these vulnerable, talented young women is not the way women should ever, ever deem to be acceptable or commonplace in any workplace.”
She added that she had heard similar allegations but wanted them to be apocryphal. “I had hoped that these kind of stories were just made up rumours, maybe we have all been naive,” she wrote.
“I have no doubt that for these women this time has been, and continues to be extremely traumatic,” added Winslet. “I fully embrace and salute their profound courage, and I unequivocally support this level of very necessary exposure of someone who has behaved in reprehensible and disgusting ways. His behaviour is without question disgraceful and appalling and very, very wrong.”
Winslet is the latest big-name Hollywood star to give support to the women who have come forward to make allegations of sexual misconduct by the film producer over the course of three decades. Meryl Streep and Judi Dench both condemned the producer, who played a prominent role in their careers. Meanwhile, Lena Dunham, Patricia Arquette and Mark Ruffalo all used Twitter to criticise the producer.
The British actor Romola Garai told the Guardian about an incident with Weinstein when she was an 18-year-old starting out in the business that left her feeling “violated”.
“Like every other woman in the industry, I’ve had an ‘audition’ with Harvey Weinstein, where I’d actually already had the audition but you had to be personally approved by him,” said Garai. “So I had to go to his hotel room in the Savoy, and he answered the door in his bathrobe. I was only 18. I felt violated by it, it has stayed very clearly in my memory.”
Weinstein was fired by the directors of the Weinstein Company on Sunday after they said new information about his “misconduct” had emerged. The producer, who is famous for his work on Pulp Fiction and Gangs of New York, was already on a voluntary leave of absence and denies some of the allegations made against him.
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