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Grey's Anatomy writer on Hollywood's 'sordid history' of sexism

I don’t have a female colleague in this town who doesn’t have stories like mine

Krista Vernoff

A Hollywood writer has told Good Morning Britain stories of the appalling sexism she's experienced in the industry, claiming misogyny has 'never gone anywhere'.

Grey’s Anatomy writer and executive Krista Vernoff told GMB of how a show's boss belittled her at a meeting by reading her script before asking: "Did someone help you write it?". On a separate occasion another male showrunner asked her about her sex life in front of a room full of people.

Speaking to presenters Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley in light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Krista said: “We have a long history, a sordid history, of this kind of thing and it’s never gone anywhere. And it’s sort of thrilling at this moment that these very powerful actresses have come out and said ‘me too’."

She also spoke of her guilt over knowing she would have worked with Weinstein if given the chance, despite knowing of his reputation.

She said: "I’ve never met Harvey, I’ve never worked with him. But I made a short film a year ago and about a month ago I was approached by a film festival that Harvey sponsors and they asked me to submit my film to their festival and I did it without thinking twice.

“Why didn’t I think twice about working with this man, who I know, because I personally know actresses who’ve been propositioned by him, I did not know he was a rapist, I did know that he had a long history of inviting actresses to hotel rooms and offering them careers in exchange for sexual favours and I do believe that is its own kind of rape. So why didn’t I think twice about the idea of working with him and that had me really looking in the mirror and really talking to my most liberal friends and saying why were we all so willing to work with him?"

Watch the full interview above

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