Uma Thurman on Harvey Weinstein assault: ‘He pushed me down, tried to shove himself on me’

Hollywood star Uma Thurman has finally broken her silence on Harvey Weinstein, alleging in an interview in the New York Times that the producer assaulted her in 1994 after the release of Pulp Fiction.

Quentin Tarantino’s breakthrough movie, which stars Thurman in a prominent role, was produced and distributed by Weinstein’s company Miramax. Thurman, who had previously hinted that she too had been one of Weinstein’s victims, finally came out with the details in an interview with the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Thurman told Dowd that Weinstein attacked her at the Savoy Hotel in London in 1994: “He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didn’t actually put his back into it and force me. You’re like an animal wriggling away, like a lizard.”

The next say, Thurman says, Weinstein sent over a bunch of roses.

A few months earlier, Weinstein had unnerved Thurman in his hotel room in Paris during a discussion over a script. He stripped down to his bathrobe and tried to lead her to a steam room, but backed out at the end, the actress said.

After the London incident, Thurman arranged to meet Weinstein, and she said she told him that he would lose his career and his reputation if he continued to treat women in the same manner.

“Mr. Weinstein acknowledges making a pass at Ms. Thurman in England after misreading her signals in Paris,” a spokesperson told New York Times. “He immediately apologized.”

Thurman had a tense relationship with Weinstein after the London assault. Apart from Pulp Fiction, Miramax produced and distributed Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 in 2004, both of which starred Thurman.

After the attack, a Hollywood executive told the newspaper, Thurman and Weinstein continued to work together, but “she didn’t give him the time of day”.

Thurman had developed a friendship with Weinstein and his first wife, Eve, after the success of Pulp Fiction. “He used to spend hours talking to me about material and complimenting my mind and validating me,” she told Dowd. “It possibly made me overlook warning signs. This was my champion. I was never any kind of studio darling. He had a chokehold on the type of films and directors that were right for me.”

Thurman said that Weinstein misused his position and abused women partly because of the legitimacy he earned through the success of such arthouse films as Pulp Fiction.

“I am one of the reasons that a young girl would walk into his room alone, the way I did,” she told New York Times. “Quentin used Harvey as the executive producer of ‘Kill Bill,’ a movie that symbolizes female empowerment. And all these lambs walked into slaughter because they were convinced nobody rises to such a position who would do something illegal to you, but they do.”