Natasha Henstridge, who has accused director Brett Ratner of sexual assault, said on Wednesday that she was also a victim of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct.
“Lucky me,” the actress told “Today” host Megyn Kelly, referring to her accusations about being the target of sexual misconduct by two powerful men in Hollywood.
Henstridge said her encounter with Weinstein occurred in a hotel room at the Sundance Film Festival. She did not specify the year. The actress said she met with the powerhouse producer as part of a business relationship, but Weinstein crossed the line into “flirtatious.”
“One thing led to another — he got very flirtatious. Suddenly it became not anything about the job that he was trying to offer me or put me up for anymore and it became about flirtation. And he did some terrible things there as well, and came on to me repeatedly,” she said, later clarifying that he “pleasured himself” in front of her.
Henstridge was one of the first women to come forward with allegations of sexual assault against “X-Men: The Last Stand” director Brett Ratner in the Los Angeles Times last month. Henstridge told the paper that as a 19-year-old model, she fell asleep watching TV with Ratner and some friends at his New York City apartment. When she woke up and tried to leave, she said that Ratner “blocked the doorway with his body and wouldn’t budge.”
“He began touching himself,” and then forced her to perform oral sex, the Times wrote. “He strong-armed me in a real way. He physically forced himself on me,” she told the newspaper. “At some point, I gave in and he did his thing.”
“When you are afraid of somebody, when you physically don’t know what… they’re capable of doing, you submit and I submitted,” Henstridge said, detailing the experience on “Megyn Kelly Today” on Wednesday.
Henstridge told Kelly that the other women who came forward about Weinstein inspired her to be brave enough to speak out against Ratner.
After reading the allegations by Ashley Judd and dozens of others, Henstridge said she considered adding her voice to the chorus, but she had a realization. “How can I come forward about Harvey, because it’s safer because so many women have, and not come forward about somebody who’s not been identified yet who’s probably still doing this today?” Henstridge thought to herself.
“I feel like we’ve been lulled into this false sense of, ‘This is just normal behavior,’” she said, adding that her career as an actress has caused people to think she deserves the treatment she’s received. “They remove that part of you, the part that’s an actress, from the human part.”