Lysette Anthony alleges she was raped on two occasions by the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein

this man has prayed and just destroyed people I still have nightmares I have nightmares of sort of mounds of white revolting flesh and skin with pores like bloody black volcanoes or those stuffed pots and that's the sort of language you should use so if that's someone's idea of a relationship well it certainly isn't mine I had such a when I was 16 I bought my first flat I had met someone I was madly in love with who I've been married and I had amazing friends and we had fun I was sent out on my own to do a big press launch and that's when I was made to go and have dinner with Harvey Weinstein well how old would you have been then I'm terrible I'm actually slightly dyslexic and I get really muddled but I would being about I think I was 18 or 19 something around them and when you say you were made to go and have dinner with him this is a really really weird story and I was there to do a press junket and meet journalists harvey was at that point a rock journalist nothing to do with the film industry nothing to do with our industry whatsoever and I was literally handed over in the lobby and told you have to have dinner with this man and outside was one of those ghastly horses and carriages so I was clearly being positioned on a date and I got in and he talked and talked and talked tell me that he want to get into film industry his brother was setting up this company after his pet named after his parents and that his big dream was to do a musical with Barry Manilow yep and then we got to being on the park and I just thought now this is this or feels a bit weird so I said I'm sorry and we went back and we must have exchanged numbers because that was the last last time next time I remember was meeting him in London but it's only years later I've just realised when all of this stuff is having to put all the pieces together for myself more than anybody else and just go oh my god how dare that woman hand me over to that man I was a child what the hell was that I mean at that time it didn't feel weird or did you just think I have to do this this is part and parcel of my job I've been working for a while I've been working for a few years and you do as you told basically believe or not actors do and but no one had ever reached that's trust you know if you go for an interview you go for an interview and you're looked after and that's the journalists job and that's the actors job so to be made to essentially go out on a date was just perverse did it feel like a date it didn't feel scary the horse and carriage was a rather unusual place for a business meeting so that's why when I got to being on the park I just went oh yeah I said no I've got to go back sorry and then what happened after that in terms of it at one stage you spoken about how over the next year or two you bit sort of became friends I became very good friends to be honest with you from this point on I'm told it's trauma but the way my memory works is it's like you take a massive glass and you've smashed it down and I can pick you up pieces and describe those pieces but I haven't quite put it together so I would have lunch people come over for lunch or the weekend or some sort of friends I don't remember how he ever being in my flat other than friends tell me that he was and they all remember him didn't like him Lugosi films just what normal people do that's a friendship it was a friendship and in fact I was fantastically flirtatious and the big memory of my friends was I never ever why would I flirt with that you know I was never flirtatious people talk about him being incredibly charming and he is and he's brilliant and he's was obviously passionate and driven and was mad about film and had dreams and we yeah I really really really got on and I think also just being around men you know what we men and I had a boyfriend and no one had ever you know people make passes all people who might get a bit handsy but it just that was it you know just no bugger off and of but this man you described as a friend when did that change significantly I have this memory of one morning in my little basement flats to suddenly seeing this is always fat fat lump of a man stumbling down my live very steep little steps and after that I have III it's like I'm behind my own head if that makes any sense I see it from the end of the corridor he knocked on the door it was in the morning I hadn't had a dressing gown on he pushed me against my coat rack and he raped me I I just you know he was so heavy in fat and get him off I'm just giving up and that's what that's that's that bit but that was the easy bit that's what came next and that's fit I've not talked about I've obviously with all of this and making this decision to fight him people would describe me as someone who certainly talks a lot but it's always I've never been shy of sharing or telling what's happened or what you know just being communicative but I've never ever spoken of this because the shame and I've thought about this a lot in terms of I think there's a type with all these 80 plus women that we are all basically nice kind of middle-class girls and the thing about nice middle-class girls were taught that we're in control I remember Mother Superior saying you hold the reins made myself laugh the other day and I thought you know moral of the story is don't take sex education from the woman dressed as a crow but anyway this is at the convent this is a convent yeah I like girls like me the Gullah was the only way you can process something like that is just if it's your fault then you can correct it you it takes the the control back but of course it doesn't just the event itself you say you know you gave up fighting you knew him perhaps a ludicrous question were you frightened at that stage just flat confused or do you know it's funny because I kind of I mean I would really like to use language that we can't use on for obvious reasons but you know this is this isn't this isn't about sex this is about domination and control this is a man who if he wanted to have well basically could have bought anything even by that point if it had women who would gladly have done anything other than the one thing that's quite tricky especially to get more more famous is to find someone who's really frightened of you that's a particular niche because aiya you come up by it and you certainly cannot fake it and he likes I well I went forever if you see pictures from being I can say that now I'm 56 there's very beautiful sweet thing into I got fatter and I just used food just a shelf shove it so it down because that's when it started then it was a horror it was a horror he just wouldn't leave me alone and I would be summoned and he would call I didn't know other calls more calls and assistants would call and then assistants would call and then my agent would call and at this point I just been things were going well for me career-wise and I've been signed up by massive American agency and then midnight you get the head of the agency calling saying you've got a meeting with Harvey Weinstein why wouldn't you go I mean you said previously that it hadn't occurred to you to ring the police there hadn't been a knife he wasn't a stranger in that moment you know did you know you'd been ready no I think that's a very very pertinent question it's Germaine Greer loves to scream about this is just bad sex that's the one thing I'm trying to say it's it's another terrain it's you're solid you're marked absolutely marked and it triggers in me and I think it's listening to other people talk other people girls like me a sense of such shame why do you think you felt shame and not that he had wronged you because again that sort of I don't know I remember lying in the bath afterwards and I have again this memory of just my feet on the tap I'm just thinking well it's all right yes just don't want that to happen again but that's rape it's like I said it's no knife there's no it's just move on sleeve it move on I obviously I've I've put up in some way I must be responsible I must have sent the wrong message and if I say anything that's exactly what it will be said so if I and that's the way I've coped and coped for the years afterwards is I brazenly would look people in the eye and say well you know what he's like but I'm the one who got away but he pushes you through the door he's as you say he's a big man there was there was no doubt in your mind that you were somehow to blame for this if you have a secret even from yourself for all of these years I haven't even tried to try to unpick it that much other than if I didn't feel so responsible or just disgusted just disgusted and also a little bit of me obviously broke then trust and all of that stuff well what do you do also I was going to a lot of other stuff my mother was very very ill and had she found out she would she was already had been sectioned mania I don't know what the language is now anyway at that point would be all around it was very heightened sexual things she would believe that people were making pornographic films of me how do you cope that that that feeling of you when you describe that disgust it's visceral still so how did you cope with that not being I don't want to be here talking to billions of people we're sons 15 I've got an amazing job I'm but but I'll do it if it makes people realize that this man who's now using languages about one of the very brave girls who's going on trial in New York you know is a long-term lover that we're not long-term lovers no Liverpool or not sorry but and I think also being an actress and this is obviously a very gender specific this story people just love to knock us down and that's what his defense is using you know they they there's some sort of I suppose some sort of jealousy of what I don't know try it try get out 5:00 every morning tried it you know of whatever it it's very isolating and he was king of the isolation but to be an actress and to be at that age very pretty and have a mother who did her best but basically I knew brought up by these yeah by nuns I I wasn't I wasn't ready for that kind of world and it's difficult to overstate how important he was in that world at the time because you carried on having to season it in different ways I think what's the one things that really infuriates me is people treat acting as though it's like some hobby but if you know if that happens a walk away get another job but it's not it's a vocation and it's it's something I'd love one day that all the TVs and movie theaters and everything the world just shut down and people realize how much they their their lives depend on us to right their worlds but also you know try most people can't do it let's face it but there's this lack of respect I don't need respect that there's laughter but there's like I said you know it what if someone's going to do that to you then just give it up do something else No why haven't you taken enough from me it would be my thing to him and I just I just knew that if I put my blinkers on and just kept moving forward I'd get out but it took me ten years when you decided to speak out that cannot have been easy you're one of the first women I think to speak I'm the only woman in England and again I say why why when people should be bloody ashamed of themselves and I'm not the only one but why in England why is no one else standing forward and there's no if a lot of people have gone quiet and if I only use their first names you know exactly who I was talking about it's like you really want to say just shame cowards what just in case you do they might not get another job someday because someday maybe he comes back or again it must be her fault because yeah having sex with Harvey Weinstein Wow that's something to look forward to what does it feel like seeing him again after the attack you don't remember I just know that the next phase then began and those pictures of me at Karen and this little round face I remember him bumping into him on the Croisette got quite a lot of the Croisette he's getting fatter by the minute and him literally waddling after me and push into my little room I was there with a film I had coming out and raping me but you know again you know what what's anyone gonna say if some aspiring actress is going to accuse of someone who is in position of ability to not let just employ them but change their world it must be her fault poor fat Harvey these lovely girls destroying themselves that I was frightened of what he do to me and I just thought if I didn't have a career I would have lost my flat because I wouldn't be able to pay for it I'm Dyslexic I've been an actress since I wasn't 16 what else oh I meant to do Bert oh it wouldn't be a horrible secretary this is basically being some form of slave I just I have nothing to show for it so it's scary there was this was not a a joyous communion of I wasn't his lover I wasn't his was I I was this I was this person who he absolutely could guarantee was so filled with self discussed and discussed it in him and in the situation and rigid literally this is sexy rigid and if I kept very still it would be over very quick and then he wouldn't leave me alone for another half year it never occurred to you then I must go to the police at this stage I must tell somebody you're holding all of that absolutely not because it would just have been turned on me you were confident of that I listened to the news you know I think the right statistics of law are still pretty you know so appalling it's he said she said it's a very tricky thing isn't it but then all those hundreds of years ago it was simple I mean you didn't go to you know you didn't go back into someone's flat which of course they're using as a defense now the bit that they're missing out that there were never hotel rooms the bit that they're missing out is that actors meeting directors and producers and in hotel suites that could house a small village is no more business practice if they're coming in from out of town but I just I I'd also met my husband and I I didn't want him to leave me soiled I know it sounds stupid and almost using Victorian language but yeah yeah sorry when you finally decided to speak out what did that feel like well I'm in a little bubble here a Hollyoaks you know when people that you really admire and love just give you a big hug and just say you're very brave and I'm proud of you [Music] then and people literally coming down from offices or mopping in the corridor or someone who happens to be keeping a studio beautifully clean who just says I think you're doing an amazing thing and my son because I said darling when this is gonna come out you know people will say awful things he said mum he said let's face it they say them anyway he's young is 15 so that's been fantastic for you to have his support cause he's exactly and he's just that whole all that stuff is starting there he's very confidently he knows his mum doesn't lie and and he also has heard 80 plus other people say who's actually more or less the same thing and will you keep fighting absolutely and the fact that he's saying his work for women is forgotten in all of this where do you think he is psychologically where he's always been man who's been able to buy whatever he's wanted he thinks he can buy himself out of this I just wondered for you was there an impact on your career there definitely was an impact on my career a young assistant told me that there had been a meeting at said massive agency when I had five films coming out including with Mel Brooks and some award-winning European directors and across the board and they just said one day to the next Lisette auntie's not worth the push and then I got called up to my agents office and he just said your husband needs to get a job he absolutely went for my my husband David never worked again having used to display up his scripts he never ever ever worked again and when we got together we bumped into Harvey just literally by chance and he looked at Dave and he just went enjoy the ride kid and I just wondered this is a tough question in a way do you wish do you ever think had you come out earlier and spoken I had been destroyed but whether it would it might have stopped him it might have prevented other women from oh I've managed to put enough blame on myself I think for a lifetime now of course it wouldn't stopped it might have just been either paid off that's what he did I mean there had been moments when I've been incredibly broke but I thought oh I missed a trick there no you know what would justice look like for you justice would look like guilty that's what I want I don't care about I mean obviously everybody you know we work hard and I'm a single mom obviously money in a pot would be very nice but that's not what this is that's not what this is at all I want rapists I want serial predatory rapists I want this man has destroyed lives and at some point sorry but I'm not holding my breath about that one you've made it XS have an IQ in your life yeah I'm very proud of being it you know Hollyoaks you know and again British being British people like to get sniffing about so this is bloody wonderful place to work and the work that we're doing is political and important and we change lives and we support lives and we also make people laugh and it's glamorous and it's fun so when you look to the future now I see laughing laughing and my son as a single mother my god to be able to know that I can give him a stable stable stability and then so I get to be a mum and I get to be I get to have a proper job and get across about all the same people most people doing normal proper jobs and I get to be part of this incredible family and I'm very lucky and I'm very humbled yeah it just has set Anthony speaking to me earlier today Harvey Weinstein has always denied any allegations of non-consensual sex we put miss Anthony's new claims to him today and his representative told us that allegations are not certainties they said that mr. Weinstein has the right to due process and the presumption of innocence in his upcoming trial and if you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this interview information can be found on the channel 4 website the channel 4 comm slash support

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 214,669

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Keywords: weinstein, weinstein Harvey, Harvey, Harvey weinstein, Harvey weinstein 2019, lysette Anthony, Lysette, Anthony, lysette Anthony Harvey weinstein, lysette anthony interview

Id: KTIM7xa_V1M

Length: 23min 28sec (1408 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019