Natalie Portman Reveals ‘Unacceptable’ Sexual Harassment Incident Involving a Producer’s Private Jet

Natalie Portman has thrown her two cents into the #MeToo movement. At a panel at the Vulture Festival in LA this weekend, the actress shared a story about being harassed and manipulated by a producer.

“I had a producer invite me to go on a private plane with him with his company somewhere I was going to,” Portman recalled. “And then I was like, ‘Yeah, why wouldn’t I accept a flight on a private plane with a big group of people?’ And I showed up, and it was just the two of us, and then one bed was made on the plane.”

“Nothing happened. I was not assaulted,” she went on. “I said, ‘This doesn’t make me comfortable,’ and that was respected, but was super not okay.”

Portman voiced her support for the ongoing revelations made by women who are coming forward to share their stories. She told her story, and she also said some thoughtful things about this shift in the industry in general.

“There are so many things that we took for granted as part of our world until it changed a month ago,” Portman said, adding that she was glad women weren’t going to sit by and “put up with” it.

Portman said that she feels all women have faced the kind of discrimination, manipulation, and even harassment that we’re talking about these days, even if they haven’t been assaulted. She said when the allegations first began coming to light, she marvelled at how “lucky” she was that it had never happened to her.

“…Then, on reflection, I was like, ‘okay, I definitely have never been assaulted… But I’ve had discrimination or harassment on almost everything I’ve ever worked on in some way.”

Portman said that, although the producer in her story relented when she said she was uncomfortable, it was still unacceptable for him to put her in that situation, and that it made her scared for her safety.