Uma Thurman has spoken out about an alleged sexual assault she experienced in Harvey Weinstein’s hotel suite.
In a feature entitled ‘This Is Why Uma Thurman Is Angry’ in Saturday’s New York Times, the actress says the disgraced Hollywood producer pushed her down and “tried to expose himself” at London’s Savoy hotel in the 1990s, before she managed to “wriggle away”.
The interview comes after the ‘Kill Bill’ star posted a message on Instagram last November expressing her anger at Weinstein, saying: “I’m glad it’s going slowly - you don’t deserve a bullet.”
Speaking to the New York Times, she said: “It was such a bat to the head. He pushed me down. He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didn’t actually put his back into it and force me.
“You’re like an animal wriggling away, like a lizard. I was doing anything I could to get the train back on the track. My track. Not his track.”
The 47-year-old star also said she was forced into sex as a teenager by an unnamed actor 20 years older than her.
After meeting the man at a Manhattan nightclub, she was “coerced” when she returned to his home for a late-night drink.
“I was ultimately compliant,” she told the newspaper. “I tried to say no, I cried, I did everything I could do. He told me the door was locked but I never ran over and tried the knob.”
“When I got home, I remember I stood in front of the mirror and I looked at my hands and I was so mad at them for not being bloody or bruised.”
Weinstein, who is the subject of police investigations in New York, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills and London, is now in therapy in Arizona.
According to the Press Association, British police investigating him have received two further allegations of sexual assault. He has denied all allegations of non-consensual sexual contact.
A spokeswoman for Weinstein issued a statement in the wake of the Uma Thurman allegations..
“Mr Weinstein acknowledges making an awkward pass 25 years ago at Ms Thurman in England after misreading her signals, after a flirtatious exchange in Paris, for which he immediately apologised and deeply regrets,” the statement said.
“However, her claims about being physically assaulted are untrue.
“There was no physical contact during Mr Weinstein’s awkward pass and [he] is saddened and puzzled as to why Ms Thurman... waited 25 years to make these allegations public”.
In the same article, Uma also detailed the rift between herself and Quentin Tarantino, who directed her two most successful films, ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Kill Bill’.
The pair fell out over a car crash scene in ‘Kill Bill’, when she alleges that Tarantino persuaded her to drive an unsafe car, which crashed and injured her.
The actress subsequently threatened to sue Weinstein’s studio but says she was denied access to the crash footage for 15 years.
“Harvey assaulted me but that didn’t kill me,” she said. “What really got me about the crash was that it was a cheap shot. I had been through so many rings of fire by that point.”
She added: “I had really always felt a connection to the greater good in my work with Quentin and most of what I allowed to happen to me and what I participated in was kind of like a horrible mud wrestle with a very angry brother.
“But at least I had some say, you know?”