LOS ANGELES (AP) – They waited years to speak, but two of Hollywood’s most powerful women might have helped seal the fate of Harvey Weinstein.
Both Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie added their first-person accounts of uncomfortable experiences with Weinstein to the ever-growing list of accusations against the movie mogul from women alleging decades of systematic sexual harassment and assault. The accusers have come from everywhere – actresses you’ve heard of, actresses you haven’t, models, assistants, employees, a reporter and young women who found themselves in the orbit of the powerful executive.
But, as the story often goes, no one expected it to go this high.
Speaking to The New York Times, in the paper’s second round of Weinstein exposés, Paltrow describes a now familiar-sounding scene of her at age 22 being asked to meet Weinstein, who had just cast her as the title character in the adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Emma.” She was summoned to Weinstein’s hotel room, where he proceeded to touch her and suggest a massage in the bedroom.
Jolie also remembered Weinstein making advances in a hotel room early in her career. She never worked with him again.