Thandie Newton was sexually abused on a movie set as a young girl.
The ‘Westworld’ star has opened up about what she experienced on the set of a movie when she was just 16-years-old.
Speaking about her experience on the set of ‘Flirting’, she shared: "It happened the night my father flew home. I was 16, and a virgin. I’d been psychologically groomed over weeks. I didn’t fight him off, I was almost paralysed with fear. It was sexual abuse."
And explaining another terrible incident she faced, she added: "I’d been called back for a second audition. The director asked me to sit with my legs apart; the camera was positioned where it could see up my skirt. He asked me to put my leg over the arm of the chair and think about the character I was supposed to be having the dialogue with and how it felt to be made love to by this person. He was a director. I was still very young and thought it must be normal."
Harvey Weinstein was recently jailed for 23 years after being convicted of third-degree rape and a first-degree criminal sexual act and whilst Thandie was pleased to see him sentenced for his crimes, she feels there are others to blame for what goes on in Hollywood.
She told The Sunday Times magazine: "He is just one person. This business preys on young people. I saw it everywhere. What I’m crying about now, it’s not about the sexual abuse I endured, it’s about the people who didn’t have the courage to protect me, who didn’t listen to me. They are the people who need to be held to account. All those people around Weinstein … it’s the rape culture, the climate of silencing, that is what once destroyed me and what now fires me up."
Thandie Newton opens up on sexual abuse
