Kate Beckinsale says Harvey Weinstein told her to 'shake her a**' on red carpet
Kate Beckinsale has said Harvey Weinstein once screamed at her over a movie premiere outfit, telling her: “If I am throwing a red carpet you get in a tight dress, you shake your a**.”
The actress opened up about the row over the Serendipity premiere after the disgraced movie producer was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault.
Sharing pictures on Instagram from the 2001 screening in New York, Beckinsale said she had not felt right about attending the event because it was just a few weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks, but that Weinstein had insisted.
Read more: Kate Beckinsale shares touching poem by late dad
She said the next day he berated her for her choice of outfit - a white trouser suit - in a foul-mouthed rant, saying he didn’t want her going down the red carpet looking like “a f****** lesbian”.
The British star, 46, said: “These photos were taken at the premiere of Serendipity on October 5, 2001.
“We all refused to go because holding a premiere mere weeks after 9/11 with the city still smoking felt like the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible.
“But Harvey insisted.”
Beckinsale claimed that Weinstein called her the next day and suggested she take her daughter to his house for a playdate with his own child, and that she agreed.
However, when she arrived, she said Weinstein got his nanny to take the babies to another room.
She said: “The minute the door closed he started screaming, ‘You stupid f****** C***, you C*** you ruined my premiere.’
“I had no idea what he was talking about and started to shake.
“He said, ‘If I am throwing a red carpet you get in a tight dress, you shake your a** you shake your t*** you do not go down it looking like a f****** lesbian you stupid f****** c***.’
Read more: Kate Beckinsale talks body shaming
“The shock made me burst into tears. I tried to say ‘Harvey, the city is on fire, people are still looking for their relatives none of us even felt the premiere was appropriate much less coming out dressed like it’s a bachelor party.’
“He said, ‘I don’t care - it’s my f****** premiere and if I want p**** on the red carpet that’s what I get.’
“Screaming. Livid.”
The Underworld star said it was “one of many experiences I had that there was no recourse for, and falls under no felony”.
She went on: “But I WAS punished for it, and for other instances where I said no to him for years, insidiously and seeming irreversibly.”
Beckinsale also celebrated the fact that Weinstein has been sentenced to a jail term.
“Hearing that he has gone to prison for 23 years is a huge relief to me on behalf of all the women he sexually assaulted or raped, and I hope will be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry,” she said.
“Having said that, the crimes that are not crimes, the inhumane bullying and sick covert abuse for which there is STILL no recourse no matter who you tell (and I did tell), these too need to go.
“I hope and pray that we as an industry can start to actually outlaw all abuses of power and expose them and eliminate them, for all genders, forever.”
“And Rose, brava,” she added, in an apparent nod to actress Rose McGowan, who was one of the earliest people to speak up against Weinstein.