Jennifer Lawrence 'punished' for calling out producer's sexual harassment

Jennifer Lawrence. Photo / AP

Jennifer Lawrence has claimed she was once "punished" by a producer for standing up for herself when a director "said something f***ed up" to her.

The 27-year-old actress was left fearing the end of her career when an unnamed producer allegedly told her she was being "unruly" for calling out a director's behaviour on set, and claims she was punished by being branded as "difficult" to work with.

Speaking during The Hollywood Reporter's annual Actress Roundtable, the 'Hunger Games' star said: "I finally made the decision to stand up for myself, and then I went to go to the bathroom at work and one of the producers stopped me and was like, 'You know, we can hear you on the microphone, you've been really unruly'. Which was not true, but basically my job was threatened because the director said something f***ed up to me and I said, 'That's sick, you can't talk to me like that.'

"And then I was punished. I got afraid that I wasn't going to be hired again. I was called 'difficult' and a 'nightmare.'"

The 'Passengers' actress also noted that many women who experience harassment in the workplace don't come forward because "they're afraid they're not going to work again."
She added: "You need to be able to say, 'This is wrong' and have somebody do something about it instead of saying, 'Oh, it's wrong? Well, you're fired.'"

Jennifer addressed the larger issue of sexual misconduct at work - which has been a talking point since Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual harassment by a number of women over a 30-year period - and hopes that the "conversation" that is happening now will spark change going forward.

She said: "The big misconception, though, is that this is just in the entertainment industry. Once again, the entertainment industry is kind of the stage on which you can see the inner workings of problems that are all over the world.

"If a flight attendant comes forward about a pilot, it doesn't end up in the news because nobody knows about it. That doesn't mean that there's less sexual abuse going on anywhere else in the world, in any other place of work. But fortunately, we're starting the conversation now."

-Bang! Showbiz