NEW YORK | Academy Award-winning actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie have joined the growing list of women who claim they were sexually harassed by movie producer Harvey Weinstein, The New York Times reported on Tuesday.
In an interview, Paltrow detailed an incident in which she was groped by Weinstein during a meeting in his hotel suite back when she was 22 years old and about to star in the film “Emma.” She said she refused his invitation to join him in his bedroom for massages.
“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified… I thought I was going to get fired,” Paltrow told The Times.
She said she reported the encounter to her boyfriend at that time, actor Brad Pitt, who warned Weinstein to never touch Paltrow again.
Jolie said she also rejected the producer’s sexual advances in the late 1990s during the release of her film “Playing by Heart.”
“I had a bad experience with Harvey Weinstein in my youth, and as a result, chose never to work with him again and warn others when they did. This behavior towards women in any field, any country is unacceptable,” Jolie said in an email.
Two other actresses, Rosanna Arquette and Judith Godrèche, made similar accusations.
Last week, The New York Times released an investigative report that detailed three decades of sexual abuse committed by Weinstein on a number of women, including actress Ashley Judd.
The Times’ follow-up report on Tuesday coincided with an article by The New Yorker which revealed the allegations of 13 women who said Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them, including three who told the magazine they had been raped.
In the article, a spokeswoman for Weinstein denied the claims. Reuters was unable to independently confirm any of the claims. Weinstein and several of the women cited in the article did not immediately reply to emailed requests for comment.
Weinstein’s spokeswoman Sallie Hofmeister was quoted in the article as saying, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein.”
“Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.”
The New York Times published an article last week in which it was alleged that Weinstein had sexually harassed several women, including actress Ashley Judd, over the last 30 years.
Weinstein, 65, last week initially apologized for causing anyone pain and said he was seeking therapy. He later threatened to sue the New York Times. He was fired at the weekend from his job as co-chairman of The Weinstein Company.
The New Yorker article said that some of the 13 women also had spoken on and off the record with The New York Times.
Two women, an aspiring U.S. actress and a rising Italian actress, told the New Yorker on the record that they were forced to perform oral sex on Weinstein. One of them also alleged forced vaginal sex. Reuters was unable to reach the two women for comment.
Actresses Rosanna Arquette and Mira Sorvino also spoke on the record to the New Yorker and said they had been subjected to unwanted sexual attention from Weinstein.
Representatives for Arquette and Sorvino did not immediately return requests for comment.
Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, producing and distributing Oscar-winning movies like “Shakespeare in Love” and “Chicago.”
