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Academy Award-Winning Actress Lupita Nyong’o Is the Latest to Accuse Harvey Weinstein of Sexual Harassment

Oct 19, 2017  •  Post A Comment

Lupita Nyong’o, who won a supporting actress Oscar for “12 Years a Slave,” has written an op-ed piece for The New York Times detailing how she says Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her over a period of several years.

Nyong’o begins her piece, “I have been following the news and reading the accounts of women coming forward to talk about being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein and others. I had shelved my experience with Harvey far in the recesses of my mind, joining in the conspiracy of silence that has allowed this predator to prowl for so many years. I had felt very much alone when these things happened, and I had blamed myself for a lot of it, quite like many of the other women who have shared their stories.

“But now that this is being discussed openly, I have not been able to avoid the memories resurfacing. I have felt sick in the pit of my stomach. I have felt such a flare of rage that the experience I recount below was not a unique incident with me, but rather part of a sinister pattern of behavior.”

After describing Weinstein’s predatory behavior at length and in depth, Nyong’o writes, “Our business is complicated because intimacy is part and parcel of our profession; as actors we are paid to do very intimate things in public. That’s why someone can have the audacity to invite you to their home or hotel and you show up. Precisely because of this we must stay vigilant and ensure that the professional intimacy is not abused. I hope we are in a pivotal moment where a sisterhood — and brotherhood of allies — is being formed in our industry. I hope we can form a community where a woman can speak up about abuse and not suffer another abuse by not being believed and instead being ridiculed. That’s why we don’t speak up — for fear of suffering twice, and for fear of being labeled and characterized by our moment of powerlessness. Though we may have endured powerlessness at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, by speaking up, speaking out and speaking together, we regain that power. And we hopefully ensure that this kind of rampant predatory behavior as an accepted feature of our industry dies here and now.”

We urge you to read Nyong’o’s entire op-ed piece by clicking here.

Lupita Nyong’o Winning an Academy Award (from YouTube)

 

 

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