Lupita Nyong'o’s terrifying encounter with a Hollywood sexual predator
Actress Lupita Nyong'o. She first met Harvey Weinstein in February 2011 at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in Germany.
What you need to know:
- Ken Auletta’s book, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, depicts movie mogul Harvey as a voracious reader who exuded a galvanising talent for creating visionary movies in Hollywood.
- Harvey’s abuse of women escalated for four decades from 1978, when Hope d’Amore became the first employee at Miramax to accuse him of rape.
In the winter of 1994 in Gramercy Park, New York City, actress Annabella Sciorra opened her front door slightly, after a knock.
To her consternation, Miramax executive Harvey Weinstein barged in without her consent. He grabbed her nightgown, shoved her onto the bed, and raped her.
Sciorra, who is famous for her role as Angie in Spike Lee’s 1990 film Jungle Fever, ended up addicted to Valium and alcohol in an effort to cope with the resulting post-traumatic stress.
Her promising career faltered after Harvey mounted an operation to ruin her reputation, by instigating a narrative that she was difficult to work with, a typical smear campaign he used to subjugate his victims.
Ken Auletta’s book, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence, depicts movie mogul Harvey as a voracious reader who exuded a galvanising talent for creating visionary movies in Hollywood.
The films he produced and distributed garnered 81 Academy Awards and 341 Oscar nominations. Miramax, situated at 375 Greenwich Street in New York City, accounted for an estimated 80 per cent market share of all independent movies released in the US.
Harvey was also a volatile executive who managed Miramax with irrational bouts of ungovernable anger, demeaning staff with derogatory words and sexually assaulting his female employees for sport.
The unremorseful male-dominated Hollywood culture enables the exploitation of women by a custom of silence. Harvey’s abuse of women escalated for four decades from 1978, when Hope d’Amore, became the first employee at Miramax to accuse him of rape.
He was a sexual transgressor, infamous for his lack of empathy and impulse control. Laura Madden, an Irish-born Miramax production assistant, was hired in 1992 to work in its London office.
On one occasion, Harvey asked her to come to his Dublin suite. Upon her arrival, he claimed he had a stiff neck and needed a massage, a pretext he regularly used on his victims. He proceeded to rape Laura in his suite.
His sexual urge was so compulsive he induced his lawyers to coerce his female employees to sign blanket iron-clad non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), to prevent them from exposing him. Harvey viewed the casting and production stages of his films as a one-stop shop for sexual trespass.
The cover of Ken Auletta’s book, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence.
British actress Lysette Anthony, of Husbands and Wives fame, disclosed that she was introduced to Harvey in the late 80s, when she was 18. One late night when she answered the door in her nightgown, Harvey shoved it open and raped her at the entrance of her house.
Uma Thurman, who appeared in Miramax-produced Pulp Fiction, reported being sexually assaulted by Harvey, to the Creative Artists Agency (CAA). The most influential talent agency in Hollywood, but no action was taken.
Harvey met Lupita Nyong’o in February 2011 at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival in Germany. She was still a student at Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut. She exchanged contacts with him, hoping she would be considered for one of his film projects.
Harvey emailed her once she returned to New Haven and invited her to his home in Westport Connecticut, to watch the screening of a movie together with his family.
Upon arrival, Harvey introduced his children to her before they watched the movie in his screening room. Fifteen minutes into the screening, he instructed Lupita to follow him. She protested, but his rage drove her to accompany him to his bedroom.
Once there, he informed her he wanted to give her a massage. Lupita was stunned. For the first time since meeting Harvey, she felt terrified. Out of fear, she opted to give him a massage instead.
She thought it would calm his volcanic temper and allow her to control the situation, by knowing where his hands were at all times. Harvey then decided to take his pants off and Lupita sped to the door. She decided not to accept any more private invitations from Harvey.
A couple of months later, Harvey sent Lupita an email, inviting her to the screening of the film W.E., and for drinks at the Tribeca Grill in New York. She had the impression that it would be a group dinner, but when Harvey arrived at the Tribeca, his enabling assistant Barbara Schneeweiss left.
Harvey insisted they should have dinner in his private room upstairs, but Lupita declined. He went on a typical boastful tirade of how he had bedded A-list actresses and propelled them to success. Lupita stood her ground and rejected his advances. After leaving Tribeca, she made a silent promise never to work for Harvey.
In 2014 after she won an Academy Award in her first feature film 12 Years a Slave, Lupita received an offer to be in one of Harvey’s forthcoming films, but she rejected it. She knew she had dodged a bullet when an October 5, 2017 New York Times exposé provided evidence of Harvey’s transgressions.
Over 100 women accused him of inappropriate sexual conduct. On February 24, 2020, Harvey was sentenced to Wende Correctional Facility in Buffalo, New York State, for 23 years, on five counts of third degree rape and two counts of sexual assault.
The reviewer is a novelist, a Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff’s Fitness Center (@jeffbigbrother).
