Kate Beckinsale Details Experiences Of Hollywood Misogyny: Being Assaulted At 18, “Forced” By Rep To Do Photoshoot A Day After Miscarriage & More
Kate Beckinsale detailed her experiences of systemic Hollywood sexism in a lengthy Instagram video, highlighting the machinations in place to silence women who dare to speak up about on-set assault or harassment. The actress said her decision to speak up was made in light of the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni scandal that has reignited discussions about industry-wide misogyny.
In the clip, the Serendipity star said she was assaulted at 18 while on set and subsequently dismissed by two female colleagues, forced to do a photoshoot by her public relations representative a day after she miscarried and subjected to name-calling, ridicule and unhealthy beauty standards.
Beckinsale began the video, clocking in at just under five minutes, by stressing that she does not personally know Lively or Baldoni and cannot speak to what allegedly happened on set, but that the situation has “highlighted … this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful, whatever, in this industry.”
The Underworld actress then proceeded to list several Hollywood horror stories of her own, including that she was called “that c—” and a “stupid bitch” to her face because she called out a male co-star for being “drunk everyday” on set. While Beckinsale said it was clear the actor was going through a rough time and that she had “full sympathy for that,” the studio’s solution to the 6-hour set delays was to give her a bike she could ride around while she waited.
She continued, detailing “groups of people” who stood around her debating “How do we make her more attractive?” Beckinsale continued, saying, “I was put on such a strict diet-and-exercise program on one movie that I lost my periods altogether — that’s happened twice.”
She also recalled being put in “unsafe fight situations on two different films with two different actors,” saying that she’s worked with men who get “kind of a thrill” out of actually harming women on set during stunt actions, to the point where she had “MRIs proving” injury. Beckinsale said the response to raising an issue was being “gaslit, made to feel like I was the problem, blamed and ostracized, left out of cast dinners, not spoken to.”
Additionally, she said a rep she employed forced her to do a photoshoot the day after she miscarried, while she was still bleeding. While Beckinsale said she was “fortunate enough” to not be sexually assaulted by disgraced mogul Harvey Weinstein, she alleged he blacklisted her from directors and magazine editors because she turned down role.
Regardless of the outcome to the allegations surrounding the It Ends With Us film — which began as rumors of a star-director rift and has now escalated to a deluge of legal complaints, defamation lawsuits and subsequent fallout for Baldoni — Beckinsale reaffirmed, “This is going on. This has been going on forever. I have got about 47 million stories similar to this,” including being “felt up by somebody I really trusted on a crew” at the age of 18. When Beckinsale went to report the assault to a “lead actress,” who she said is a vocal supporter of women, she was dismissed; a following attempt to speak to another female co-star also failed, as she was rebuffed amid tears, she said.
“What’s really depressing is I see a lot of men going around, saying, ‘Oh, it was very different a while ago. The climate is so different and it’s so much better.’ It f—ing isn’t,” Beckinsale said. “And if you’re a woman and you have a legitimate complaint … somebody’s touching my boobs, or calling me a c— or calling me a bitch or whatever, you’re f—ed.”
Beckinsale concluded her post with a call to action, adding in a detailed caption, partly, “Complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse, particularly at work where there should be inviolable safeguarding in place, and it should not be expected of women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused (mostly with at least 100 witnesses) to have to be ‘one of the boys’ and take it on the chin or face retribution for having been abused in the first place.”
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