Lupita Nyong'o during a past event in Nairobi. The actress has accused
US movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexually harassing her. FILE PHOTO
| NATION MEDIA GROUP
Hollywood star Lupita Nyong’o has become the
latest woman to accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, giving an
account of how the film mogul offered to exchange sex for help with her
career.
In an op-ed in the New York Times, the 34-year-old, who won an Oscar for her performance in '12 Years a Slave', detailed several explicit passes Mr Weinstein tried to foist on her when she was a student actor at Yale School of Drama.
POWERFUL
Lupita
said she met the powerful movie producer in 2011 at a movie festival
and he invited her to his home to allegedly watch a film he had just
produced.
Fifteen minutes into the
film, Mr Weinstein, with his young children at home at the time,
allegedly lured her to another part of the house.
“Harvey led me into a bedroom — his bedroom — and announced that he wanted to give me a massage,” Lupita wrote.
'I FELT UNSAFE'
“I
thought he was joking at first,” Lupita wrote. “He was not. For the
first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and
thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: I would allow me to be
in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all
times.”
She added: “I began to
massage his back to buy myself time to figure out how to extricate
myself from this undesirable situation.”
Before
long, she wrote, he said he wanted to take off his trouser. “I told him
not to do that and informed him that it would make me extremely
uncomfortable.”
The incident then ended and she left the home.
PRIVATE SPACES
Lupita
admits, “I didn’t quite know how to process the massage incident. I
reasoned that it had been inappropriate and uncalled-for, but not
overtly sexual.” She added: “But I knew I would not be accepting any
more visits to private spaces with Harvey Weinstein.”
Still,
he persisted. Mr Weinstein invited her to his screening in New York.
She joined him at a restaurant, expecting others to be there. Instead,
he was alone.
He quickly got to the
point: “Let’s cut to the chase. I have a private room upstairs where we
can have the rest of our meal.” I was stunned. I told him I preferred to
eat in the restaurant. He told me not to be so naïve. If I wanted to be
an actress, then I had to be willing to do this sort of thing. He said
he had dated Famous Actress X and Y and look where that had gotten
them,” Lupita wrote.
PROBE
Dozens
of women in the entertainment industry have come forward to claim they
were sexually harassed or assaulted by Mr Weinstein, allegations he has
denied.
Last week, the case against Mr Weinstein took an international dimension with police in New York and Britain launching investigations - while a fourth woman accused the movie mogul of rape.
On
Thursday, the Los Angeles Police department announced via Twitter that
it has opened an investigation into the movie producer over a suspected
rape.
A police spokesman told AFP
that the department interviewed a possible sexual assault victim who
reported an incident that occurred in 2013.
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