The ‘Harveywood’ scandal is spreading like wildfire, with both actors and actresses coming out of the wood work to tell their horrid tales of sexual harassment, abuse and rape. Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Lawrence told EW about their harrowing tales of casting couch abuse during their teenage years.
EW reports on Witherspoon:
“This has been a really hard week for women in Hollywood, for women all over the world, and a lot of situations and a lot of industries are forced to remember and relive a lot of ugly truths,” the Oscar winner said at the event held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. “I have my own experiences that have come back to me very vividly and I find it really hard to sleep, hard to think, hard to communicate a lot of the feelings that I’ve been having about anxiety, honest, the guilt for not speaking up earlier.”
“[I feel] true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16-years-old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment,” she added.
“And I wish that I could tell you that was an isolated incident in my career, but sadly it wasn’t. I’ve had multiple experiences of harassment and sexual assault and I don’t speak about them very often.”
Lawrence has her own tale. She was told at the age of 15-years-old that she would be ‘perfectly f*ckable,’ if she lost additional weight — at the age of 15.
The mother! actress, who was one of eight honorees at the L.A. event, explained that she was asked by producers to slim down drastically for one of her first roles.
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EW reports:
“When I was much younger and starting out, I was told by producers of a film to lose 15 pounds in two weeks,” she said, revealing another actress before her had already been fired for not losing the weight fast enough.
[…]
“During this time a female producer had me do a nude line-up with about five women who were much, much, thinner than me. We are stood side-by-side with only tape on covering our privates,” she added.
“After that degrading and humiliating line-up, the female producer told me I should use the naked photos of myself as inspiration for my diet.”
[…]
“He said he didn’t know why everyone thought I was so fat, he thought I was ‘perfectly f—able.’”
“I’m still learning that I don’t have to smile when a man makes me uncomfortable,” Lawerence added.
“Every human being should have the power to be treated with respect because they’re human.”
“I was deeply disturbed to hear the news about Harvey Weinstein’s behavior,” Lawerence revealed.
“I worked with Harvey five years ago and I did not experience any form of harassment personally, nor did I know about any of these allegations. This kind of abuse is inexcusable and absolutely upsetting.”
