Salma Hayek hasn’t “healed” from the trauma she suffered after allegedly being sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein.
Salma Hayek
The 54-year-old actress previously accused Weinstein – who is serving a 23-year jail sentence on charges of sexual assault and rape – of harassment when she claimed she was forced to turn down offers for a number of scenarios he allegedly asked her to be involved in whilst they were working on the 2002 movie ‘Frida’, including “letting him give [her] a massage” and “letting him give [her] oral sex”.
Now, Salma has admitted she initially thought working with the producer was a “dream come true”, before she allegedly witnessed his predatory behaviour.
And the actress also said she “thought [she] had healed” from the trauma, but realised she was still suffering when allegations about Weinstein began surfacing in 2017.
She told the Evening Standard newspaper: “The amazing thing is that I thought I had healed. And then everything came out again and I realized I didn’t heal, I repressed and I coped, I adjusted, I went on, so there was a layer of healing because it didn’t stop me from growing.”
But Salma did begin to work through her trauma when she connected with other women who alleged to have had similar experiences with Weinstein.
She added: “But it was very painful for a long time. I didn’t know there were so many other women affected and that it went so deep. It was very shocking. But the fact that we [took action] together made it really healing. I lived with that for long enough and I detach myself from it now.”
Salma first came forward with her accusations against Weinstein in December 2017, when she said the former Miramax boss told her she was “nobody” when they first began working together, and he had made her feel “validated” when she was cast in his movies.
She explained: “When so many women came forward to describe what Harvey had done to them, I had to confront my cowardice and humbly accept that my story, as important as it was to me, was nothing but a drop in an ocean of sorrow and confusion. I felt that by now nobody would care about my pain - maybe this was an effect of the many times I was told, especially by Harvey, that I was nobody.
“I was so excited to work with him and that company. In my naïveté, I thought my dream had come true. He had validated the last 14 years of my life. He had taken a chance on me - a nobody. He had said yes.
“Little did I know it would become my turn to say no. No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with. No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman. No, no, no, no, no.”
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