Model-turned-actress Cara Delevingne has revealed that disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein once told her to get a fake boyfriend if she wanted to get ahead in Hollywood.
She discussed the incident in a recent interview with Net-A-Porter, while speaking more broadly about the challenges of being a queer woman in the entertainment business. She explained:
“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’.”
In an earlier interview with The Cut, she said:
“When I first started to work as an actress, I was working on a film and I received a call from Harvey Weinstein asking if I had slept with any of the women I was seen out with in the media. It was a very odd and uncomfortable call … I answered none of his questions and hurried off the phone.”
She also revealed that she took a meeting with him in which he bragged about women he’d slept with, then invited her to his hotel room, where he tried to convince her to kiss another woman.
She said that she got the role she was auditioning for, although she felt “awful” as she worried she was only given the part because of this incident.
Nonetheless, her career has thrived in recent years. She is in a happy relationship with partner Ashley Benson, and currently stars alongside Orlando Bloom in Carnival Row.
