Kate Beckinsale has described an obscenity-filled rant by Harvey Weinstein in which he allegedly called her “stupid fucking cunt” after he objected to her choice of outfit for a film premiere in 2001.

In a post on social media, Beckinsale outlined events after a screening for the romcom Serendipity, in which she starred opposite John Cusack. She said Weinstein insisted on holding the premiere only a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks, calling it “the most insensitive, tone deaf, disrespectful idea possible”. Beckinsale said Weinstein had arranged for her to visit his home with her two-year-old daughter, and then launched a tirade at her when they were alone.

According to Beckinsale, Weinstein was enraged that she wore a white suit and tie rather than a “tight dress”.

“The minute the door closed, he started screaming, ‘You stupid fucking CUNT, you CUNT you ruined my premiere.’ I had no idea what he was talking about and started to shake … He said, ‘If I am throwing a red carpet, you get in a tight dress, you shake your ass, you shake your tits, you do not go down it looking like a fucking lesbian, you stupid fucking cunt.’”

Beckinsale said she “burst into tears”, before objecting that the city was still in shock after the World Trade Center attacks. She added: “He said, ‘I don’t care – it’s my fucking premiere and if I want pussy on the red carpet that’s what I get.’ Screaming. Livid.”

Beckinsale expressed relief over Weinstein’s 23-year prison sentence, saying she was “punished” as a result of the incident, “and for other instances where I said no to him for years, insidiously and seeming irreversibly”. “I hope [it] will be a deterrent to that sort of behavior in this and any other industry … Having said that, the crimes that are not crimes, the inhumane bullying and sick covert abuse for which there is STILL no recourse no matter who you tell (and I did tell), these too need to go.”