Salma Hayek Recounts Harrowing Experience with Harvey Weinstein and How Hollywood Friendships May Have Protected Her

Renowned actress Salma Hayek once shared her deeply troubling experience with disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, detailing the sexual harassment she endured and how her connections in the industry, including friendships with George Clooney and others, may have spared her from even worse situations. Her powerful account was first revealed in a 2017 article in The New York Times.

Hayek’s ordeal began when she pitched her passion project to Weinstein—a biopic about the iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. What initially seemed like a dream opportunity quickly became a nightmare. “For years, he was my monster. A passionate cinephile, a risk-taker, a patron of talent in film, a loving father, and a monster,” Hayek shared, as reported by Hollywood Life.

The actress recounted numerous instances of Weinstein’s inappropriate advances. “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. 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…”

Hayek believes that her Hollywood connections may have protected her from even more severe abuse. “I knew him a little bit through my relationship with the director Robert Rodriguez and the producer Elizabeth Avellan, who was then his wife, with whom I had done several films and who had taken me under their wing,” she said. “Knowing what I know now, I wonder if it wasn’t my friendship with them—and Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney—that saved me from being raped.”

The process of making Frida was grueling for Hayek. Weinstein’s intimidation tactics ranged from manipulative sweet-talking to outright threats. “The range of his persuasion tactics went from sweet-talking me to that one time when, in an attack of fury, he said the terrifying words, ‘I will kill you, don’t think I can’t,'” Hayek revealed. He also consistently undermined her abilities and threatened to shut down the production.

In one particularly distressing incident, Weinstein arrived on set and criticized Kahlo’s “unibrow,” demanded the elimination of the character’s limp, and berated Hayek’s performance. He then cleared the room to deliver a chilling ultimatum: perform a sex scene with another woman, or the film would be shut down. Hayek reluctantly agreed, but the experience left her traumatized. “I had a nervous breakdown. My body began to shake uncontrollably, my breath was short, and I began to cry and cry,” she recalled, as reported by Vogue. “It was not because I would be naked with another woman. It was because I would be naked with her for Harvey Weinstein.”