Hilton says she told Weinstein at Cannes in 2000 that she wanted to act. Photo / YouTube
Hilton says she told Weinstein at Cannes in 2000 that she wanted to act. Photo / YouTube
Paris Hilton has opened up about a shocking encounter with disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.
In the interview with Glamour UK, Hilton shared details of the incident that she said took place when she was just 19.
Hilton was at the festival’s annual amfAR gala and she had met Weinstein the day before the gala, that he was hosting that year.
“I was at lunch with my girlfriend and he came up to the table and was like, ‘Oh, you want to be an actress?’ And I said, “Yeah, I really want to be in a movie,’” Hilton told Glamour UK.
“I was a teenager, so I was impressed by him. I was like, ‘Oh my god, Harvey Weinstein is so cool!’ and he said, ‘Well, we should have a meeting. You can come up to my room and read scripts’… and I just didn’t want to go, so I never went.”
But Weinstein allegedly became hostile to the star and followed her into the women’s bathroom screaming, “Ya wanna be a star?”
“I went into the bathroom and then he followed me. He tried to open the door, he was hammering on the door, banging on it,” Hilton went on to reveal.
“And I wouldn’t open it, because I was like, ‘I’m in a stall, why do you want to come in here?’ And I just wouldn’t open it. And security came and literally carried him away and he was like [shouting], ‘This is my party,’ going nuts. It scared me and freaked me out.”
Hilton also shared that she had heard the rumours about Weinstein at the time, but claimed the industry turned a “blind eye”.
Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court. Photo / AP
“Yeah, and it was just someone so powerful in Hollywood who everyone was terrified of,” Hilton said.
“I didn’t even want to say anything about it because I was like, ‘I don’t want people getting mad at me for saying anything,’ because it was just a known thing. He was just like that and people were like, ‘OK, just turn a blind eye.’”
Glamour UK reporteded that Weinstein denies the bathroom incident and all of Hilton’s allegations.
In the same interview, Hilton also shared that she was raped and drugged by a man much older than her when she was just 15.
And more recently Hilton revealed that she and her husband Carter Reum named their son, whom they welcomed via surrogate, Phoenix Barron Hilton Reum.
On the same day, a judge sentenced Weinstein to 16 years in prison after finding him guilty of three counts of sexual assault and rape.
His latest sentence will be served after his 23-year New York prison sentence, where in 2020 a judge found him guilty of rape and criminal sexual acts.
