Cara Delevingne hasn’t forgotten an early encounter she had with Harvey Weinstein, not because of what he did, but rather because of what he said.
“One of the first things Harvey Weinstein ever said to me was, ‘You will never make it in this industry as a gay woman – get a beard,’” the model turned “Carnival Row” actress said in a new interview with Net-a-Porter.
“When I’d just started to audition for films, he was naming people [women] I’m friends with – famous people – and asking, ‘Have you slept with this person?’ I just thought: this is insane.”
Weinstein’s memorable words of advice came “a long time before he tried to touch me,” she said, referring to an allegation she raised on Instagram October 2017 in which she wrote that she had received a call from Weinstein “asking if I had slept with any of the women I had been seen with in the media.”
“It was a very odd and uncomfortable call,” she wrote. “I answered none of his questions and hurried off the phone, but before I hung up, he said to me that if I was gay or decided to be with a woman especially in public that I’d never get the role of a straight woman or make it as an actress in Hollywood.”
Delevingne, who also played Enchantress in “Suicide Squad,” has been dating “Pretty Little Liars” actress Ashley Benson for over a year, has been open about her sexuality, but refuses to label it.
“The labels for everything bum me out. I hate to label myself,” she told Net-a-Porter. “I’ve been to so many dinners where people are like, ‘So, what are you? L, G, B, T, Q?’ I’m like, ‘Guys, really? This is what we’re talking about?’ I change every day.”