Lupita Nyong'o on Harvey Weinstein

Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o is opening up about how Harvey Weinstein had harassed her in a long op-ed for the New York Times. The 12 Years a Slave star had met him at an event in Berlin in 2011 while she was a student at the Yale School of Drama. He then invited her to his home to watch a screening of a movie with his family, it was reported on JustJared.com.

Lupita says that in her first encounter with Harvey, she found him to be “very direct and authoritative, but also charming,” but in the second she “found him to be pushy and idiosyncratic more than anything”.

“Harvey led me into a bedroom — his bedroom — and announced that he wanted to give me a massage. I thought he was joking at first. He was not. For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe. I panicked a little and thought quickly to offer to give him one instead: It would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times,” she wrote. When Harvey tried to take off his pants, Lupita left.

On another occasion, when he asked her to come to a private room to dine, she declined. “I don’t know about your career, but you’ll be fine,” he had said. And after she won an Oscar, he tried to work with her but she refused.