Just a few days after The New York Times published a piece with countless allegations against Harvey Weinstein for sexual harassment, several accusers have come out against the Hollywood executive with sexual assault allegations.
A report published by The New Yorker on Tuesday includes accounts from several actresses and a former employee, who spoke anonymously, with far more damning allegations than were revealed in the piece by The Times.
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Italian actress Asia Argento and former aspiring actress Lucia Evans opened up about their encounters with the now former film executive and the details are horrifying.
“I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento told The New Yorker. “That’s why this story–in my case, it’s 20 years old, some of them are older–has never come out.”
Argento was only 21 years old when she went to a hotel on the French Riviera in 1997 where she thought she would be meeting Weinstein at a party, but arrived to an empty room where she found Weinstein in a bathrobe.
“He asks me to give a massage. I was like, ‘Look man, I am no f**king fool,'” Argento recalls. “But, looking back, I am a f**king fool. And I am still trying to come to grips with what happened.”
After reluctantly giving Weinstein a massage, he lifted up her skirt, forced her legs open and performed oral sex on her. Argento claims she resisted repeatedly until she decided to fake enjoyment to get him to stop.
“It wouldn’t stop. It was a nightmare,” she explained.
“I was not willing,” Argento added. “I said, ‘No, no, no.’ . . . It’s twisted. A big fat man wanting to eat you. It’s a scary fairy tale.”
Evans met with Weinstein in 2004 and remembers finding him frightening right from the start. He began the meeting baiting her with career opportunities before sexually assaulting her.
“He forced me to perform oral sex on him,” she said, explaining that when she resisted he took his penis out and pulled her head down onto it.
“I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,'” Evans recalled. “I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.”
“He’s a big guy. He overpowered me,” she added. “I just sort of gave up. That’s the most horrible part of it, and that’s why he’s been able to do this for so long to so many women: people give up, and then they feel like it’s their fault.”
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While Weinstein’s actions have been an open secret in Hollywood for years, the reports by both The Times and The New Yorker have exposed the rest of the world to the movie mogul’s disgusting history. Many of the actors and actresses who have worked with him and heard the rumors over the years have now spoken out against his actions.
He was fired from his position at the Weinstein Company following the report by The New York Times last week.