Actress Katherine Kendall, who publicly accused producer Harvey Weinstein of harassing her in his apartment in 1993, says she took time to speak out in public about the same as she feared being blacklisted in Hollywood.
Kendall, 48, had alleged earlier this month that Weinstein had “literally chased me” and stopped her from getting past him to reach the door.
In an interview in July, which has now surfaced, Kendall referred to inappropriate behaviour from a powerful unnamed producer and revealed she was “scared” to go public because of how she might be subsequently treated or viewed, reports the Guardian.
“You make yourself a target in a way – I was awful scared that I would be judged, even blackballed. They could make it so you don’t work,” she said.
Kendall said that at the time of the alleged attack, complaints of sexual harassment by women were routinely dismissed.
“If you were a woman who complained about someone harassing you, people laughed at you. You didn’t have a leg to stand on,” she said.
Another factor that stopped Kendall, best known for her starring role in the 1996 film “Swingers”, from speaking out for 25 years was the fear that it would attract significant scrutiny of her and that people would cast her as a victim.
“I never went to the press because I was too scared. I didn’t want attention brought on me for that, intuitively I didn’t want it. I don’t like to talk about my personal life too much.”
