Jennifer Lawrence told the Hollywood Reporter that people in Hollywood knew Harvey Weinstein “was a dog” but that she “didn’t know that he was a rapist.”
“Just speaking for myself, I had known him since I was 20, and he had only ever been nice to me — except for the moments that he wasn’t, and then I called him an asshole, and we moved on,” the 27-year-old actress shared in an article published Wednesday. (RELATED: Jennifer Lawrence Stuns On Red Carpet In See-Through Metallic Chain Dress)
Actor Jennifer Lawrence arrives on the red carpet for the film “Mother!” at the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, September 10, 2017. REUTERS/Mark Blinch
“He was paternal to me,” she added. “So I needed a moment to process everything because I thought I knew this guy, and then he’s being accused of rape. We all knew he was a dog, we knew that he was a … a tough guy, a brute, a tough guy to negotiate with.”
“I didn’t know that he was a rapist,” she continued. “And it’s so widespread, the abuse, from so many different people — it’s directors, it’s producers — that I think everybody needed to [process it]. Everybody needs to deal with this in their own way; everybody needs to heal.”
The “Hunger Games” star also opened up about being hacked in 2014 and the nude photos of her that were leaked online. For the first time since the hack, she did what she described as a sexy film “Red Sparrow” as a way of “taking something back.”
“I have such fear with my phone and my computer and electronics,” Lawrence shared. “It’s taking somebody’s intellectual property but also my body. It was violating on a sexual level.”
“Red Sparrow was sexual, and I haven’t done anything sexy or sexual,” she added. “I’ve been afraid of that since 2014, when I got my pictures hacked. I just thought, ‘I’ll never do that again. I’ll never share that part of myself ever since it got shared against my will.’ And then when I said yes to Red Sparrow, I felt I was taking something back.”
“Red Sparrow” is expected to come out in spring 2018.