Lupita Nyong'o details Harvey Weinstein's 'inappropriate' advances toward her in op-ed

Lupita Nyong'o.
(Image credit: Jason Merritt/TERM/Getty Images)

In an op-ed for The New York Times published Thursday, actress Lupita Nyong'o described several uncomfortable encounters she had with Harvey Weinstein, saying she's speaking up to "make certain that this is not the kind of misconduct that deserves a second chance."

Nyong'o said she first met Weinstein in 2011 while a student at the Yale School of Drama, and was warned he "could be a bully." He invited her to screen a movie at his Connecticut home, and he led her into his bedroom, where he said he wanted to give her a massage. "For the first time since I met him, I felt unsafe," she said. Nyong'o turned the tables and offered him a massage, because "it would allow me to be in control physically, to know exactly where his hands were at all times," she wrote. When he said he wanted to take off his pants, Nyong'o headed to the door. "I didn't quite know how to process the massage incident," she said. "I reasoned that it had been inappropriate and uncalled for, but not overtly sexual." Months later, he overtly propositioned her at dinner, and she said no.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.