Uma Thurman has detailed the sexual assault she suffered at the hands of Harvey Weinstein.
In a new interview with the New York Times published Friday, the Kill Bill actress details her working relationship with Weinstein, which she described as positive until an incident where he forced himself on her in England.
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“It was such a bat to the head,” Thurman said. “He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didn’t actually put his back into it and force me. You’re like an animal wriggling away, like a lizard. I was doing anything I could to get the train back on the track. My track. Not his track.”
The incident occurred after Thurman starred in Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction. She said she had gotten to know the producer “pretty well” before the incident occurred, which is what made it so surprising.
“I knew him pretty well before he attacked me,” she said. “He used to spend hours talking to me about material and complimenting my mind and validating me. It possibly made me overlook warning signs. This was my champion. I was never any kind of studio darling. He had a chokehold on the type of films and directors that were right for me.”
Thurman said the attacked stemmed from a previous incident with Weinstein in Paris. They were discussing a script when he randomly changed into a bathrobe.
“It went right over my head,” Thurman said. “I didn’t feel threatened. I thought he was being super idiosyncratic, like this was your kooky, eccentric uncle.”
He then asked her to follow him down a hallway, and he led her into a steam room. Before things got out of hand, Thurman called Weinstein out. He then abandoned whatever plan he had in motion.
“I was standing there in my full black leather outfit — boots, pants, jacket,” she said. “And it was so hot and I said, ‘This is ridiculous, what are you doing?’ And he was getting very flustered and mad and he jumped up and ran out.”
Weinstein confirmed the Thurman’s account through a representative and cited this previous incident in Paris as the reason he “made a pass” at Thurman.
“Mr. Weinstein acknowledges making a pass at Ms. Thurman in England after misreading her signals in Paris,” the representative said. “He immediately apologized.”
Thurman confirmed the “apology,” but she did not forgive Weinstein for his actions.
“The next day to her house arrived a 26-inch-wide vulgar bunch of roses,” Thurman says. “They were yellow. And I opened the note like it was a soiled diaper and it just said, ‘You have great instincts.’”
