Gwyneth Paltrow has more details to share about the time Brad Pitt threatened Harvey Weinstein on her behalf. In an interview with Howard Stern on Wednesday, the actress recounted when Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed her in a hotel room in 1995, asking her to give him a massage (Weinstein has denied the allegation). Paltrow, who was dating Pitt at the time, told The New York Times back in October that she immediately told her boyfriend what happened. Pitt later confronted Weinstein at an event and told him to stay away from her, she said; a representative for Pitt confirmed the story to the Times. In her interview with Stern, Paltrow shared a few more details about how the confrontation went down.
“I told [Pitt] right away and I was very shaken by the whole thing,” she said of the incident. Later, Pitt decided to confront Weinstein when all three were attending the opening of Hamlet on Broadway. “It was like the equivalent of throwing him against the wall, energetically,” Paltrow recalled.
“It was so fantastic. He leveraged his fame and power to protect me at a time when I didn’t have fame or power yet. He said, ‘If you ever make her feel uncomfortable again, I’ll kill you,’ or something like that.”
Paltrow’s rehashing of events arrives around the same time that federal prosecutors in New York have decided to launch a sex-crimes investigation into Weinstein’s allegedly abusive behavior, according to The Wall Street Journal. Though there are already ongoing investigations into Weinstein’s alleged behavior, law-enforcement authorities are reportedly frustrated by how long it has taken for criminal charges to be brought against Weinstein. Michael Bock, a former sergeant for the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Division, who previously investigated Weinstein, told the Journal that he wondered, “How much longer can they let it linger? We believe he should be arrested.”
This new federal investigation will partially examine whether Weinstein “lured or induced any women to travel across state lines for the purpose of committing a sex crime,” the Journal reports, an offense that could lead to federal charges.
This investigation is separate from the N.Y.P.D.’s ongoing case. Though officers are prepared to arrest Weinstein, they are currently waiting for approval from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who has come under fire for how he handled a 2015 case against Weinstein.
Per the Journal: “Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said he has met with federal prosecutors in Manhattan ‘in an attempt to dissuade them from proceeding’ and will continue to meet with them in the coming weeks.”
“Mr. Weinstein has always maintained that he has never engaged in nonconsensual sexual acts,” he said.
Since October, Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women, including actresses like Paltrow, Lupita Nyong’o, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Judd (who has since filed a sexual harassment lawsuit of her own against him), and Mira Sorvino. Some of his most vocal opponents have been stars like Rose McGowan and Asia Argento, both of whom have claimed that Weinstein raped them. In addition to the various investigations into his alleged behavior, Weinstein is also facing legal action from several women who claim that he was abusive or inappropriate toward them.
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