Ashley Judd gives emotional first TV interview on Harvey Weinstein: 'I had no warning'

["HaMsIK"]

The actress Ashley Judd, one of the first women to publicly accuse Hollywood giant Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, has given her first TV interview about the unfolding scandal, going into more detail about her alleged encounter with Weinstein, and why she felt unable to go public at the time it occurred.

Speaking to Diane Sawyer on ABC's Good Morning America, Judd recalled an incident she relayed in a New York Times piece in early October, in which she alleged that she entered a hotel room in 1997 for a business meeting with Weinstein, which ended in the mogul suggesting she give him a massage or watch him shower.

"I had no warning," Judd said. "I remember the lurch when I went to the desk, and I said, 'Uh, Mr Weinstein, is he on the patio?' And they said, 'He's in his room', and I was like – [sigh] are you kidding me?"

Defending her decision to go to his room, Judd said, firmly: "I had a business appointment. Which is his pattern of sexual predation. It's how he rolled."

Adding of the encounter, Judd said: "There's this constant grooming/negotiation going on. I thought no meant no. I fought with this volley of nos, which he ignored. Who knows? Maybe he'd heard them as maybe, maybe he heard them as yeses, maybe they turned him on, I don't know."

Judd tells Sawyer that she ended up bartering with Weinstein in order to get out of the room, recalling that she said that if Weinstein wanted to touch her, she would have to win an Oscar for a role in one of his movies.

Asked why she did such a thing, Judd said: "Am I proud of that? I'm of two minds. The part that shames myself says no. The part of me that understands the way shame works says, 'That was absolutely brilliant; Good job, kid; You got out of there, well done.'

"It's a very important word: shame. And it's a very important thing to talk about. So we all do the best we can. And our best is good enough. And it's really okay to have responded however we responded."

She also recalled an incident in 1999 in which Weinstein reminded her of their "agreement". At a dinner party, Judd remembered being sat across from him when he told her, "'Remember that little agreement we made? Think I've got that script for you. Hey, just looking around for the material.

 

Alongside Morgan Freeman in 1997's Kiss the Girls

 

"I had just reached the up with which I could not put," she recalled. "I had come into my own, I had come into my power, I had found my voice, and I was coming right at him, Diane.

"And he looked at me, across the table, and said, 'You know, Ashley, I'm gonna let you out of that little agreement that we made.' And I said, 'You do that, Harvey, you do that.' And he has spat my name at me ever since."

Asked why she didn't come forward at the time, Judd said that she had privately spoken about the incident to agents, fellow actors and other Hollywood figures, but felt she couldn't go public with the accusation.

"If I could go back retrospectively with a magic wand and say, 'I wish I could prevent, I wish I could prevent it for anyone, always'... I don't know if I would have been believed.