Lena Headey Says Refusing Sex With Harvey Weinstein Damaged Her Career

Lena Headey

Game of Thrones actor Lena Headey says rejecting disgraced filmmaker Harvey Weinstein‘s sexual advances could have “impacted a decade” of her career.

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Headey told The Sunday Times that after she refused to have sex with Weinstein, the film company he co-founded, Miramax, no longer offered her any roles.

“After he was discovered to be a slime ball, on a grander scale than me just knowing it, I did start thinking, ‘Fuck, maybe because I didn’t shag him, that’s impacted a decade of my working life’, because I did two jobs for Miramax before those incidents, and after that there was nothing,” Headey said.

In October 2017, The New York Times published an explosive report detailing decades of alleged sexual misconduct. At least 34 women came forward with allegations including Kate Beckinsale, Cara Delevingne, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd, and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

A week after the report, Headey detailed her own experience with Weinstein in a series of posts on Twitter.

Headey said she met Weinstein at the 2005 Venice Film Festival. Her film, The Brothers Grimm, which Miramax distributed was premiering.

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. 

Years later, Headey said she had another disturbing encounter with Weinstein. After asking to meet her for breakfast, Weinstein suggested they go back to his hotel room because he wanted to show her a script.

We walked to the lift and the energy shifted, 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.

Headey claimed Weinstein became “furious” and told her to never tell “anyone about this, not your manger, not your agent.”

“I got into my car and I cried,” Headey said.

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