Actress Heather Graham joined a growing chorus of accusers on Tuesday, saying she was propositioned by disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Graham also said she was “ashamed” for her silence after observing that Ashley Judd had come forward with her own Weinstein story.
In the op-ed for Variety, Graham said she avoided Weinstein after he implied sex with him would land her a role in one of his films.
In the early 2000s, Graham said Weinstein called her into his office, where a pile of scripts sat on the mogul’s desk. “I want to put you in one of my movies,” said Weinstein. He followed up, mentioning that he had an agreement with his wife and could sleep with whoever he wanted when he was out of town. Graham felt uncomfortable and walked out of the meeting.
“There was no explicit mention that to star in one of those films I had to sleep with him, but the subtext was there,” wrote Graham.
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A few weeks later, Weinstein asked Graham for a followup meeting at his hotel. She had another actress friend lined up to accompany her to the meeting due to her “discomfort with the situation,” she wrote. The unnamed actress backed out and Graham decided to decline Weinstein’s meeting invite, not wanting to go alone. Graham noted that she was never cast in any of Weinstein’s films.
“My hope is that this moment starts a dialogue on redefining sexual harassment in the workplace and empowers women to speak out when they feel uncomfortable in a situation,” she wrote.
On Thursday, the New York Times revealed that Mr. Weinstein had settled at least eight cases of sexual harassment over his decades long career. The bombshell report has dominated headlines since it dropped. A show of public contrition from Weinstein was ultimately unable to step the damage and the Hollywood titan was fired by his company’s board of directors on Sunday night.
