Salma Hayek claims 'monster' Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed and threatened to kill her
Salma Hayek has added her name to the list of women who say they were sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein, describing the disgraced movie producer as a "monster."
Writing in the New York Times, Hayek said Weinstein, 65, would turn up at her hotel room asking her to take a shower with him, receive a massage or let him perform a sex act on her.
The persistent harassment allegedly took place while she was filming the Frida Kahlo biopic Frida.
She claims he even told her "I will kill you, don't think I can't," adding that he would only let her finish filming the movie if she agreed to do a sex scene with another woman involving full frontal nudity.
Hayek suggested that her friendship with the director Robert Rodriguez and producer Elizabeth Avellan, as well as Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney, may have "saved me from being raped."
"Harvey Weinstein was a passionate cinephile, a risk taker, a patron of talent in film, a loving father and a monster," she wrote. "For years, he was my monster.
"When so many women came forward to describe what Harvey had done to them, I had to confront my cowardice and humbly accept that my story, as important as it was to me, was nothing but a drop in an ocean of sorrow and confusion.
"I felt that by now nobody would care about my pain - maybe this was an effect of the many times I was told, especially by Harvey, that I was nobody.
"We are finally becoming conscious of a vice that has been socially accepted and has insulted and humiliated millions of girls like me, for in every woman there is a girl.
"I am inspired by those who had the courage to speak out, especially in a society that elected a president who has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women and whom we have all heard make a statement about how a man in power can do anything he wants to women.
"Well, not anymore."
The actress said she was delighted when Weinstein agreed to finance Frida, writing: "He had taken a chance on me - a nobody. He had said yes.
"Little did I know it would become my turn to say no.
"No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn't even involved with.
"No to me taking a shower with him.
"No to letting him watch me take a shower.
"No to letting him give me a massage.
"No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage.
"No to letting him give me oral sex.
"No to my getting naked with another woman.
"No, no, no, no, no...
"And with every refusal came Harvey's Machiavellian rage. I don't think he hated anything more than the word 'no'."
Weinstein threatened to shut down production on Frida unless she agreed to a sex scene with Ashley Judd, Hayek claims.
A statement released by Weinstein's spokeswoman said all the sexual allegations portrayed by Hayek, who the film producer regards as a "first-class" actress are not accurate.
"Mr Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female co-star and he was not there for the filming. However, that was part of the story, as Frida Kahlo was bisexual and the more significant sex scene in the movie was choreographed by Ms Hayek with Geoffrey Rush."
"All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired," it added.