Award winning actress, Lupita Nyong’o, has joined the many women accusing powerful Hollywood producer, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual harassment. Lupita revealed in a piece she penned for the New York Times that Harvey Weinstein harassed her a number of times from when she was a student at Yale in 2011.
Lupita claims that Mr. Weinstein invited her to his Conneticut home for a film screening only to lead her to his bedroom under false pretenses. “Harvey led me into a bedroom – his bedroom – and announced that he wanted to give me a massage.I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe.”
Harvey also harassed her on a separate occasion where he invited Lupita for a screening. Lupita arrived for the dinner expecting a group of people, only to be find herself alone with Mr. Weinstein who suggested they continue their meal in a private room. After she declined, Mr. Weinstein threatened her, “I don’t know about your career, but you’ll be fine.”
She later met Harvey at the premiere of ’12 Years a Slave’ where he proceeded to express surprise at her ‘quick’ success and apologized for his behavior. Lupita however, made a note to never work on any Weinstein film even after he tried to convince her to be part of his projects.
She ends her oped with a call for the conspiracy of silence to end. “I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed.” We hope for the same Lupita! It’s not easy to speak up so we applaud Lupita and the other women for speaking up. We also send good vibes to the women that are not able to speak up.
Harvey Weinstein is currently under investigation. We hope justice will be served for all the women he has harmed.
