Recently Blake Lively sued her ‘It Ends With Us’ director and co-star, Justin Baldoni. She accused him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign after she confronted him. After Amber Heard, Kate Beckinsale came out in support of Lively. She shared harrowing incidents of her encounter with Hollywood’s distressing sexism machinery.
Taking to Instagram, Beckinsale shared a video revealing a few disturbing instances of harassment in Hollywood. She also iterated that for voicing out their discomfort or distasteful behaviour, the system turns against the actress. “What this has highlighted is this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful, or whatever else in this industry.”
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She revealed, “I’ve been on a film, for example, where by the end of it I was referred to over walkie-talkies and to my face as ‘that c***,’ because I had said, ‘I’m finding it very difficult. My co-star is drunk every day and he’s obviously going through something. And I have full sympathy for that. But I’m also waiting, as is the whole crew, six hours a day for him to learn his lines. And it means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings for 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 b***h. At one point during a take, I was called ‘you stupid b***h.’”
Kate Beckinsale added, “Sometimes there’s a certain kind of actor who gets kind of a thrill out of legally being able to harm a woman during a fight sequence. And I was harmed, to the point where there were MRIs proving it. And actually, what happened was, I was gaslit. I was made to feel like I was the problem, blamed and ostracized” She added that she was “left out of cast dinners, not spoken to, as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.”
Sharing another shattering incident, Beckinsale said, “I was forced by a publicist to do a photo shoot the day after I had a miscarriage. I said, ‘I can’t. I’m bleeding. I don’t want to go and change my clothes in front of people I don’t know and do a photoshoot. I’m bleeding out a miscarriage. And she was like, ‘You have to, or you’ll be sued.’ I have about 47 million stories similar to this.”
Recounting an incident from her early days, she shared a harrowing story. “At the age of 18, felt up by somebody that I really trusted on a crew. Went to the lead actress, who’s known for being a supporter of women, and said this has happened and was told, ‘No, it didn’t.’ I went to another actress, crying, and said I’d just been assaulted by this man and again told, ‘No, you haven’t been.’”
Also Read: Hailey Bieber responds to marriage trouble rumors with Justin Bieber
Lauding Blake Lively, the ‘Pearl Harbour’ actress said, “If you’re a woman and you have a legitimate complaint…like ‘somebody’s touching my boobs’ or ‘calling me a c***,’ you’re f****d. If you mention it, you’re f****d. It’s supposed to be that you absorb it and then you’re the homie. That has to stop. And I’m grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting the fact that this is not an archaic problem…this is continuing. And then when it does happen, a machine goes into place to absolutely destroy you.”
