Numerous women have come forth to share their Harvey Weinstein stories, and that number now includes Jennifer Aniston.
Interviewed by Variety for its annual “Power of Women” issue, the former “Friends” star reveals she had a run-in with the disgraced Hollywood mogul when she worked on the Weinstein-produced film Derailed in 2005.
“There was the premiere dinner. I remember I was sitting at the dinner table with Clive [Owen], and our producers and a friend of mine was sitting with me,” she told the magazine. “And he literally came to the table and said to my friend: ‘Get up!’ And I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ And so my friend got up and moved and Harvey sat down. It was just such a level of gross entitlement and piggish behaviour.”
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That, however, wasn’t even the worst of it, with Aniston also recalling Weinstein’s demand that she wear a dress from Marchesa — the fashion line launched by his then-wife Georgina Chapman.
“I remember, right when Georgina’s clothing line Marchesa was starting. That’s when he came to visit me in London while we were shooting,” Aniston recounted. “He’d be like, ‘Okay, so I’d like you to wear one of these to the premiere.’ And I went through the book, and at the time, it wasn’t what it is today. It was not for me. He was like, ‘You have to wear the dress.’ That was my only bullying. And I was like, ‘No, I will not wear the dress.'”
According to Aniston, she stuck to her guns. “Well, what was he going to do? Come over here and make me wear it?!”
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Meanwhile, Aniston will soon be seen in the anticipated new dramedy “The Morning Show” for the new Apple TV+ streaming service, in which she and Reese Witherspoon play rival hosts of network TV morning shows.
As Aniston explains, the series was originally meant to focus on the competition between the two anchors, but took a bit of a left turn after Matt Lauer’s firing from Today in 2017 over allegations of sexual misconduct.
Steve Carell was subsequently cast as Aniston’s co-anchor, who is fired over similar allegations (although she insists Carell’s character “is not based on [Lauer] at all”).
“The show got picked up. We sold it to Apple with an outline. Then, about four months later, the whole s**t hit the fan and, basically, we had to start from scratch,” she said.
