Exclusive: James Bond star tells story publicly for first time of having to fight off advances of Hollywood producer in Paris hotel room

Léa Seydoux was on the brink of stardom when she found herself face to face with one of Hollywood’s most renowned executives: Harvey Weinstein. The two were attending a Paris fashion show, and Weinstein insisted on a meeting at his hotel that very night, she claimed.



'I had to defend myself': the night Harvey Weinstein jumped on me | Léa Seydoux Read more

But a conversation about Seydoux’s career, she claimed, took a sharp turn when Weinstein lunged at her and tried to kiss her on the lips.

“We were talking on the sofa when he suddenly jumped on me and tried to kiss me,” she told the Guardian. “I had to defend myself. He’s big and fat, so I had to be forceful to resist him.

“He tried more than once,” she added, describing Weinstein as “very domineering” and “losing control”. “I pushed him physically. I think he respected me because I resisted him.”

Seydoux, who appeared in the 2015 James Bond film Spectre and was the award-winning star of Blue Is the Warmest Colour, is telling her story publicly for the first time.

In doing so, she joins a rising chorus of women who claim Weinstein not only used his awesome power as a Hollywood producer to make unwanted sexual advances – he also used physical force.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Léa Seydoux in Spectre. Photograph: Allstar/United Artists

Seydoux claims the incident took place at the Hôtel Plaza Athénée. She said she could not recall certain details about the encounter because of the time that had passed. She believes – but is not sure – that the year was 2012. Photos taken at Paris fashion week that year portray Weinstein attending the specific show where Seydoux says the two met.

She could not recall if Weinstein succeeded in kissing her, or how he reacted when she tried to get away.

Details of Seydoux’s story echo how other women have described their encounters with Weinstein. Weinstein spoke as if he were considering Seydoux for a movie role. They met publicly in the lobby of his hotel, Seydoux recalled, and were initially accompanied by Weinstein’s young female assistant.

According to a Weinstein Company executive who spoke to the New Yorker, Weinstein often arranged for female subordinates to be present to put other women at ease.

At Weinstein’s insistence, Seydoux claims, the meeting continued over drinks in his hotel suite, where his assistant left Seydoux and Weinstein alone.

Seydoux said she suspected Weinstein wanted to meet with her not to discuss her career but to make a pass at her. But the meeting with Weinstein was difficult to refuse. Weinstein at the time would have been at the peak of his career.

“This was never going to be about work. He had other intentions – I could see that very clearly,” she said. “All throughout the evening, he flirted and stared at me as if I was a piece of meat.”

Still, she said: “It was hard to say no because he’s so powerful. I’m an actress and he’s a producer.”

Seydoux said that after her alleged encounter with Weinstein, she told her story to several friends but never made it public.

“My agent at the time said to stay far [away from him] and be polite,” she recalled.

“Since that night in his hotel room, I’ve seen him on many other occasions,” Seydoux said. “We are in the same industry, so its impossible to avoid him. I’ve seen how he operates: the way he looks for an opening. The way he tests women to see what he can get away with.

“That’s the most disgusting thing. Everyone knew what Harvey was up to and no one did anything. It’s unbelievable that he’s been able to act like this for decades and still keep his career.”

Weinstein has now been accused by more than a dozen women including Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow of making unwanted sexual advances during business meetings, or of touching them sexually without their consent.

On Wednesday, the actor Cara Delevigne made an accusation similar to Seydoux’s, saying at the end of a meeting in his hotel room, Weinstein stood in front of the door and tried to kiss her on the lips. “I stopped him and managed to get out of the room,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

The Guardian contacted Weinstein’s representatives with the details of Seydoux’s allegations and received no response at press time.

The allegations against Harvey Weinstein: what we know so far Read more

Weinstein has said many of the details of those public accounts are inaccurate, and he has denied accusations of criminal sexual harassment, rape and sexual assault.

On Tuesday, in a New Yorker article in which three women claimed Weinstein had raped them, Sallie Hofmeister, a spokesperson for Weinstein, said: “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein … With respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual.”

The powerful production company bearing his name has fired him and dozens of his former collaborators have severed their ties with public condemnation. The Walt Disney Company, which owns the company where Weinstein was a longtime producer, and leading Democrats, such as former Barack Obama, who once counted Weinstein as a major donor, were among those issuing forceful denunciations.

On Wednesday, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts suspended Harvey Weinstein’s membership, and there are calls for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, which awards the Oscars, to do the same.