Pamela Anderson Says Harvey Weinstein's Accusers Shouldn't Have Been Alone with Him: 'You Know What You're Getting Into'
Pamela Anderson has stirred up controversy by suggesting Harvey Weinstein’s accusers shouldn’t have allowed themselves to be alone with him.
“It was common knowledge that certain producers or certain people in Hollywood or people to avoid, privately,” she told Megyn Kelly Thursday. “You know what you’re getting into if you’re going into a hotel room alone.”
Anderson, who has spoken out about her own experiences with sexual abuse, went on to explain that when she was a young actress, she used her “common sense” to avoid uncomfortable situations with certain producers.
“When I came to Hollywood, of course I had a lot of offers to do private auditions and things that made absolutely no sense,” she said. “Just common sense: don’t go into a hotel room alone. If someone enters a door in a bathrobe, leave. These things that are common sense.”
When Kelly suggested that many of these women were lured into meetings by their agents or female assistants, Anderson said the women should have insisted another person be in the room. “That’s what they should have done. Send somebody with them. I think there’s easy ways to remedy that. That’s not a good excuse,” she said.
She continued, “I know that Hollywood is very seductive and these people want to be famous. Sometimes you think you’re going to be safe with an adult in the room. I don’t know where this security comes from, but somehow I’ve dodged it all. I’ve been offered lots of things. A condo and a Porsche to be someone’s number one girl. I just naively said, ‘Well there must be a number two then, so I’m not interested.’ Money, homes, roles in movies. And I just didn’t want to do it that way. I had no desire. I’m a romantic and it didn’t appeal to me.”
Weinstein, 65, has been accused of sexual misconduct by over 50 women including Cara Delevingne, Ashley Judd, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie since The New York Times and The New Yorker documented decades of alleged sexual misconduct and sexual assault involving a number of women in detailed articles in October.
A spokesperson for Weinstein previously told PEOPLE in a statement, “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”
Anderson previously revealed in 2014 that she was molested by a female babysitter when she was 6. She also said she was raped by a 25-year-old man when she was 12, and later gang-raped by a boyfriend and six of his friends.
Speaking about her past, Anderson told Kelly, “We naturally blame ourselves. You somehow think that you were to blame.”
Anderson also opened up about being verbally berated by Weinstein while working on the Superhero Movie in 2008. According to Anderson, her character, Invisible Girl, was meant to have an invisible pet dog. As a staunch animal rights activist, Anderson refused to work with a stage dog to protest their treatment on film sets.
When Weinstein heard her argument, Anderson said he became furious. “You’re Pamela Anderson and you don’t deserve anything. If you don’t do this you’ll never work in this town again,” she said Weinstein told her. “Never in my life had I been talked to [like this]. I’ve had some pretty bad boyfriends. And I’ve never been talked to this way.”
In the second part of the interview, airing Friday, Anderson answers questions about her relationship with Julian Assange.
“He’s so funny. He’s very kind, he’s very smart,” she said of the controversial Wikileaks founder in a teaser for the second episode. “Brilliant. We talk about everything. I’m there for four hours at a time, and I see him all the time. He asks me about my kids, about my life. We just have this great conversation.”
Assange has also been accused of sexual misconduct, and had been in a seven-year legal standoff with Swedish authorities of rape charges. In May, prosecutors in Sweden dropped the preliminary investigation because Assange had taken asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The investigation would continue if he ever makes himself available to authorities.