Kate Beckinsale details industry-wide sexism in wake of Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni controversy

Inspired by Blake Lively’s recent allegations against her It Ends With Us director and co-star Justin Baldoni, Kate Beckinsale has detailed her disregarded attempts at speaking out against sexism on set. In an Instagram video, Beckinsale breaks down numerous instances of her complaints against sexist behavior being ignored or dismissed at different points in her career. She says that her efforts to defend and protect herself from on-set and industry-wide misogyny frequently placed her in compromising, dangerous, and invasive positions that hurt her reputation.

Beckinsale clarifies that she does not know Lively or Baldoni but has followed the story closely and believes Lively’s allegations “highlighted this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something” in this industry. “This is not an archaic problem no one is facing,” she says in the video. “This is continuing.”

Beckinsale’s instances range from trying to work with an intoxicated coworker to “being felt up” by a crew member to being forced into a photoshoot the day after a miscarriage. Her complaints were rebutted or ignored in each instance while she was treated like a pariah. She recalls being “referred to over walkie talkie and my face as ‘that cunt’ because I said, ‘I’m finding it difficult [to work]; my co-star is drunk every day [on set].'”

“He was going through something. I have sympathy for that, but I was waiting, as was the crew, for six hours a day for him to learn his lines,” Beckinsale says in the video. “It means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings the whole movie. The studio’s response was to give me a bike so I could ride around the studio lot while I was waiting. And then, of course, I was called a ‘cunt’ and a ‘bitch.’ During a take, I was called a ‘stupid bitch.'”

In other instances, she says a male co-star injured her during a fight scene, claiming “there’s a certain kind of actor who gets a thrill out of legally being able to harm a woman during a fight sequence.” One such actor hurt her, and despite having the MRIs to prove it, she was ostracized from the shoot. “I was gaslit and made to feel like I was the problem and blamed and left out of cast dinners as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.”

Beckinsale also says that when she was 18, she was “felt up by somebody that I really trusted on the crew.” When she told the lead actress, who was “known for being a supporter of women,” that this happened, she was told, “‘No, it didn’t.'” “I went to another actress and said I’d just been assaulted by this man and told, ‘No, you haven’t been.'”

“This is going on. This has been going on forever. I have 47 million stories similar to this,” Beckinsale continues. “If you mention it, you’re fucked. It’s supposed to be; you absorb it, and somehow you’re the homie. That has to stop. I am grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting this is not an archaic problem no one is facing. This is continuing. When it does happen, a machine goes in place to absolutely destroy you.”

 

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