Blake Lively has come forward with her own tale of s-xual harassment amid the Harvey Weinstein scandal sweeping Hollywood.
The former Gossip Girl star told the Los Angeles Times that she was s-xually harassed by a make-up artist on the set of a past project, which she didn't name, who filmed her while she slept and became inappropriate with her.
"He was saying things inappropriately, insisting on putting my lipstick on with his finger,” she told the newspaper. "I was sleeping one night on location and I woke up and he was filming me. I was clothed, but it was a very voyeuristic, terrifying thing to do."
Blake claims she complained to the producers on the set of the project for three months, and thought something was being done about the situation when they called her into her trailer. However, she was left stunned when they instead broached an incident of her dog defecating in her dressing room, telling her "this is very serious and we can't have this happen again."
The 30-year-old actress then got her lawyer involved, which resulted in the make-up artist being let go from the project. But no other punishment was made, with Blake adding: "Our unit production manager wrote him a letter of recommendation because nobody wanted there to be bad blood."
Blake's decision to come forward with the tale came after she spoke about the allegations surrounding Weinstein, and the claims that he s-xually abused and harassed legions of women in Hollywood over a three-decade period.
The actress has never worked with Weinstein in a professional capacity, but has been friends with the movie mogul in the past and posed for pictures with him at the 2017 Time 100 Gala in April.
Talking to The Hollywood Reporter, Blake said: "That was never my experience with Harvey in any way whatsoever, and I think that if people heard these stories... I do believe in humanity enough to think that this wouldn’t have just continued. I never heard any stories like this - I never heard anything specific - but it’s devastating to hear. The No. 1 thing that can happen is that people who share their stories, people have to listen to them and trust them, and people have to take it seriously."
The mother-of-two added: "As important as it is to remain furious about this, it’s important to also say that this exists everywhere so remember to look everywhere. This isn’t a single incident. This cannot happen, this should not happen, and it happens in every single industry... It’s important that women are furious right now. It’s important that there is an uprising. It’s important that we don’t stand for this and that we don’t focus on one or two or three or four stories, it’s important that we focus on humanity in general and say, ‘This is unacceptable."
