‘GoT’ star Lena Headey says rejecting Harvey Weinstein's alleged advances 'impacted a decade' of her career
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In 2017, Lena Headey opened up about two alleged encounters with disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein. Now the "Game of Thrones" star is sharing how she believes rejecting Weinstein's alleged advances impacted her acting career for 10 years.
In a new interview with UK's Sunday Times (via People), the British actress said: "After he was discovered to be a slimeball, on a grander scale than me just knowing it, I did start thinking, ‘F—, maybe because I didn’t shag him, that’s impacted a decade of my working life. Because I did two jobs for [Weinstein’s production company] Miramax before those incidents, and after that there was nothing.”
In response, a rep for Weinstein denied there ever being "anything other than a professional and respectful relationship between" Headey, 45, and Weinstein, 66.
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'GAME OF THRONES' STAR LENA HEADEY DETAILS CLOSE CALLS WITH HARVEY WEINSTEIN
“Lena Headey is a terrific actor with smart and resourceful agents, as her role for the past eight years on 'Game of Thrones' confirms,” the statement obtained by People read. “There was never anything other than a professional and respectful relationship between Ms. Headey and Mr. Weinstein, and any other assertion is absolutely untrue.”
A rep for Weinstein did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
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Back in October 2017, Headey — who stars as Queen Cersei Lannister on the HBO series — went on Twitter, detailing two alleged encounters with Weinstein, whom she says she first met at a screening of "The Brothers Grimm" at The Venice Film Festival.
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“At one point Harvey asked me to take a walk down to the water, I walked down with him and he stopped and made some suggestive comment, a gesture. I just laughed it off, I was genuinely shocked. I remember thinking, 'It’s got to be a joke.' I said something like… ‘Oh come on mate?! It’d be like kissing my dad! Let’s go get a drink, get back to the others.’ I was never in any other Miramax film," she alleged.
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In a separate post, Headey claimed the next time she ran into Weinstein was in Los Angeles "years later."
“I had always carried the thought that he’d never try anything with me again, not after I'd laughed and said never in a million years,’’ Headey said. “I believed he respected my boundary and maybe he wanted to talk about potential work."
“He asked to meet me for breakfast,” she continued. “We ate breakfast, we talked about films, filmmaking. He asked me a few questions about the state of my love life. I shifted the conversation back to something less personal.”
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Headey alleged that Weinstein then went to the bathroom, and when he came back, he suggested that they go to his hotel room because he wanted to give her a script.
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“We walked to the lift and the energy shifted,” she said. “My whole body went into high alert, the lift was going up and I said to Harvey, ‘I’m not interested in anything other than work, please don’t think I got in here with you for any other reason, nothing is going to happen,’ I said. I don’t know what possessed me to speak out at that moment, only that I had such a strong sense of don’t come near me.”
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She continued: “He was silent after I spoke, furious. We got out of the lift and walked to his room. His hand was on my back, he was marching me forward, not a word, I felt completely powerless, he tried his key card and it didn’t work, then he got really angry.”
“He walked me back to the lift, through the hotel to the valet, by grabbing and holding tightly to the back of my arm,” Headey alleged. “He paid for my car and whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t tell anyone about this, not your manager, not your agent.’ I got into my car and cried.”
Weinstein is charged with raping an unidentified female acquaintance in 2013 and performing a forcible sex act on a different woman in 2006. A conviction could put him in prison for the rest of his life.
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Weinstein denies all allegations of nonconsensual sex.