Goldie Hawn has opened up about the time she confronted Harvey Weinstein after he sabotaged their former “deal”.
In the late Eighties, Weinstein’s production company Miramax was set to adapt the famous Broadway musical Chicago for the screen. Hawn was set to star as Velma Kelly opposite Madonna as Roxie Hart.
Though, while it was in development, Weinstein commissioned an alternative script which featured a younger 23-year-old Velma. Hawn was two decades older at the time.
“Harvey basically undermined me and Madonna,” Hawn told Variety in a new interview. “I said, ‘Don’t f*** with me. Because I know just what you’re doing. We made a deal.”
The project eventually deteriorated, and Weinstein later overhauled it with Renée Zellweger leading as Roxie and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma. The 2002 film went on to win the Oscar for Best Film the following year.
However, to Hawn’s pleasant surprise, the since-disgraced media mogul did end up paying her the amount they had originally shaken on for her work.
“You stand up to a bully, and sometimes you win,” she recalled. “I said to him afterwards, ‘You know what the best part of you paying me is? Not the money. You restored my faith in dignity and ethics.’ Little did I know...
“He’s finally living his karma,” she added.
Weinstein is currently serving a decades-long prison sentence for sexual assault crime convictions in Los Angeles and New York.
From prison, he shared a statement with the outlet, saying: “Acting roles were always chosen based on what was best for the project, artistically and financially.
“We felt we did the best we could on Chicago and I’m proud of it, and I am so elated that Goldie’s experience was a positive one, and that she has the fortitude to say that in this environment. I would simply say, ‘thank you.’”
