Ashley Judd was one of the women who told her story in the original New York Times story that reported on the decades of sexual harassment and abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein, and today she sat down with Diane Sawyer on ABC’s Good Morning America to discuss the allegations further. Judd’s story has become all too familiar since she told it to the Times, with dozens of other women echoing her account of Weinstein moving a scheduled meeting to a hotel room, asking for a massage, and then requesting (or demanding) sex. Judd says she managed to get out of the room by promising Weinstein’s she’d do it once she won an Oscar in one of his movies, and while she initially felt ashamed of saying that, she now knows that the most important thing was getting out.
At one point during the interview Sawyer brings up a photo that Weinstein’s team released of him and Judd at an event in the ‘90s, showing the two of them smiling together. Weinstein’s people apparently claimed that it’s proof that the two of them were still on good terms after the alleged incident, but Judd unequivocally shuts that down and dismisses it as an attempt to “deny, attack, reverse the order of offender and victim.” She also points to another photo from the same party where she says Weinstein grabbed her hand, describing her face as “abject terror.”
Judd also adds that she wishes she had a “magic wand” so she could go back and stop the alleged harassment and abuse from happening—for her and others. “I wish I could prevent it for anyone, always,” she says.
You can see a video of Judd’s interview at the ABC News website.