We’re now three weeks—or multiple decades, for some of the women involved—into the ongoing Harvey Weinstein sexual assault scandal, and yet every day still sees more and more women coming forward with stories of Weinstein’s alleged actions against them. Today, Variety reports that actress Natassia Malthe—whose credits include films like Elektra and Lake Placid—is working with lawyer Gloria Allred to tell her own Weinstein story, reporting two separate instances in which the producer either lied to her to lure her into a sexual situation or forced himself on her outright.
According to Malthe, she was working at the BAFTAs in London in 2008 when she caught Weinstein’s eye. The producer apparently requested a photo with her, and then managed to wheedle her into giving his people her hotel details. After leaving the event, Malthe was awoken that night by Weinstein banging on her hotel room door. “I opened the door and his clothes were messy and his face didn’t look normal and I thought, ‘Could he possibly be on drugs?’” Malthe said. “He took off his pants and sat on the bed. I was feeling panicked and wondering, ‘What should I do?’… He was a very large man, and at the time, I weighed 98 pounds.”
Weinstein proceeded to brag—as he was apparently wont to do—about all the famous actresses he’d slept with, and how much “good” he had done for their careers. After Malthe made it clear she was uninterested in a “casting couch” meeting, Weinstein, ignoring her, began to masturbate. Then he sexually assaulted her. “It was not consensual,” Malthe said. “He did not use a condom. He did not ejaculate inside of me. Then he masturbated. I laid still and just closed my eyes and wanted it to end. I played dead.”
Malthe says that, after Weinstein left, he sent over a script for the musical film Nine, and set up a meeting for her to discuss and audition for the part. Not wanting to destroy her career by turning him down, Malthe agreed, but attempted to set boundaries and safeguards for the meeting. Weinstein assured her that one of his assistants would be present—another standard part of his alleged playbook—but, when Malthe arrived at the meeting, she says the assistant led her to a hotel room and then departed. Inside the room was Weinstein and another woman, who laughed at and mocked her when she refused to participate in the intended threesome.
“Actresses should not have to demean themselves to be successful,” Malthe, accompanied by Allred, told reporters today. “The situation with Harvey was not isolated. The experiences with Harvey were the worst. Hollywood men should not be allowed to force women to gratify them sexually in order to move ahead.”
Allred has sent a letter to The Weinstein Co. board—which was recently sued by another actress for allegedly knowing about and doing nothing to stop Weinstein’s actions—asking for a meeting to discuss the now more than 50 women who’ve come forward with stories against him, and the possibility of setting up a fund to help them recover from those events. So far, the company’s board has declined to meet with her.