After Lena Headey, Lupita Nyong’o comes to light to reveal her sexual harassment experiences with Harvey Weinstein. Just like the “Game of Thrones” star, she had encountered two bad experiences with the 65-year-old movie mogul.
However, as Nyong’o, 34, starts to make a name of her own, she unveiled how his attitude and treatment towards her surprisingly changed. In her Op-Ed for the New York Times, she shared this horrible point in her life and how she felt uncomfortable and unsafe with the presence of the known film producer.
The massage to lead her escape
Nyong’o first met Weinstein in 2011. She was still a student at the Yale School of Drama and she didn’t know a thing about him.
As they were about to be introduced, she asked a female producer what to expect from him. “Keep Harvey in your corner,” the unnamed producer told her. Although the co-founder of Miramax is a good man to know in Hollywood, she has to be very careful when he is around. “He can be a bully,” her pal added.
Upon their meeting, she stayed formal and called him “Mr. Weinstein.” She, too, refused to drink alcohol, although he repeatedly insisted. He invited Nyong’o to his house to watch a movie in his private screening room together with his family and talked about a role that he can potentially give her.
After meeting his staff and kids, she was pressured to go with him alone. As she didn’t want to create an uproar with his children around, she complied. He led her to his bedroom and offered her massage. “I felt unsafe,” she said. She was starting to panic, but she composed herself and suggested that she will give him massage instead so that she would be in control.
She tried her best to keep things professional and find her way out. But when he tried to take his pants off, Nyong’o hurried to the door and told him that she had to go back to school if they were not going to watch the movie. The role Weinstein wanted to offer her was the series he produced on HBO, “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” which was already canceled since 2009.
Standing for herself and beliefs
On their next meeting, Nyong’o was accompanied by two male friends. She thought he had changed after their first uncomfortable encounter.
And just like Headey, she thought he had respected her boundaries. So, when Weinstein invited her again for another movie screening, she went alone. She thought they would be watching as a group, but it turned out that she would just be escorted by his assistant and would leave her once he arrived.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” he told her. Nyong’o was stunned when he declared that they should finish their meal inside his private room upstairs. “He told me not to be so naïve,” she recalled him saying to her.
He then went on to say that if she wanted to be an actress, she should be “willing to do this” with him.
He even told her the actresses he had dated and bragged about their fame now. She strongly refused and rejected his offer.
In 2013, they once again met at the Toronto Film Festival. She and her co-stars were the talks of the town because of their movie “12 Years a Slave.” Weinstein approached her. He then told her how far she had reached as an actress, and admitted he had mistreated her in the past. “He was ashamed of his actions, and he promised to respect me moving forward,” Nyong’o said.
