Actress Ashley Judd revealed in a new interview an encounter she had with Harvey Weinstein during which she told the disgraced film producer that she would have sex with him at a later date if he would leave her alone.
Judd recounted the incident, which occurred almost two decades ago, in an interview with ABC News that first aired Thursday. The actress said that when she went to go meet with Weinstein at his hotel room, she had not heard of any of the sexual harassment allegations levied against him, Page Six reported.
"I had no warning … I remember the lurch when I went to the desk and I said, 'Mr. Weinstein, is he on the patio?' and they said, 'No, he's in his room,'" she recalled of the incident, which allegedly took place nearly 20 years ago. "I was like, 'Ugh, are you kidding me?' [But I went because] I had a business appointment. That's his pattern of sexual predation. That's how he rolled."
"There's this constant grooming negotiation going on," she continued. "I thought 'no' meant 'no,'" she said, adding that Weinstein offered her a massage. "I fought with this volley of 'nos,' which he ignored. Who knows? Maybe he heard them as 'maybe,' maybe he heard them as 'yeses,' maybe they turned him on. I don't know."
Weinstein then led Judd to a closet, according to the actress, who said there was no apparent exit from the room. She recounted cowering in a hallway for nearly seven minutes when Weinstein asked her to come into the bathroom with him.
Judd said that she then came up with the idea of offering to have sex with Weinstein at a later date to get out of the situation.
"He kept coming at me with all this other stuff, and finally I just said, 'When I win an Oscar in one of your movies, okay?'" Judd said. "And he was like, 'Yeah, when you get nominated.' And I said, 'No! When I win an Oscar.' And I fled. I just fled."
Judd then reflected on her decision, saying "the part that shames myself" is not proud of it, while the "part of me that understands the way shame works" thinks it was a smart move.