Kate Winslet: I deliberately did not thank Harvey Weinstein during Oscar speech
She said she left him out even though his company paid for and distributed the film.
Kate Winslet has said it was “absolutely deliberate” that she did not thank Harvey Weinstein when she won her best actress Oscar, despite the fact his company financed and distributed the film.
The British star, who won the Academy Award in 2009 for The Reader – in which she played a woman hiding her past as a guard at a Nazi concentration camp, thanked 19 people by name but deliberately excluded Weinstein.
“I remember being told. ‘Make sure you thank Harvey if you win’. And I remember turning around and saying, ‘No I won’t. No I won’t’.
“And it was nothing to do with not being grateful. If people aren’t well-behaved, why would I thank him?”
“The fact that I’m never going to have to deal with Harvey Weinstein again as long as I live is one of the best things that’s ever happened and I’m sure the feeling is universal.”
She told the US newspaper: “For my whole career, Harvey Weinstein, whenever I’ve bumped into him, he’d grab my arm and say, ‘Don’t forget who gave you your first movie’. Like I owe him everything.
“Then later, with The Reader, same thing, ‘I’m gonna get you that Oscar nomination, I’m gonna get you a win, I’m gonna win for you’.
“But that’s how he operated. He was bullying and nasty. Going on a business level, he was always very, very hard to deal with — he was rude.
“And hopefully what will happen is that more women will feel compelled to come forward — these women are victims of crime by a man who was always impossible to deal with.
“I hope that Harvey Weinstein absolutely is punished within the fullest extent of the law should that be the case.”
