Lupita Nyong’o is the latest Hollywood celebrity to accuse film exec Harvey Weinstein of harassment, writing a lengthy op-ed in The New York Times — which originally published the expose that broke the story of Weinstein’s alleged abuse — to detail her experience.
Nyong’o wrote Weinstein invited her to screen a movie at his private residence in Connecticut in 2011 while she was a student at Yale School of Drama. She had lunch with Weinstein and met his two young children, then screened the movie with a large group of people.
Later, she said he brought her to a bedroom and asked her for a massage. “I thought he was joking at first. He was not.”
Nyong’o said she did begin to give him a massage because it was something often done in her acting program for body awareness, but that when he took off his pants even though she asked him not to, she left.
After attending another meeting with Weinstein and two male friends, Nyong'o went to another public screening with him a few months later, then to a restaurant thinking it would be with a group. It turned out to be just the two of them, and the actress said Weinstein propositioned her to go up to a private room with him upstairs. She refused and left the restaurant without eating.
When Nyong’o’s first major movie, “12 Years a Slave,” was released, she said she again encountered Weinstein and he apologized to her for his previous treatment and said he would respect her, but she could not bring herself to work with him anyway.
Nyong’o addressed the growing group of women who have spoken out about Weinstein’s alleged harassment, writing, “Though we may have endured powerlessness at the hands of Harvey Weinstein, by speaking up, speaking out and speaking together, we regain that power. And we hopefully ensure that this kind of rampant predatory behavior as an accepted feature of our industry dies here and now.”
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.