Kate Beckinsale has responded to Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni saying she herself faced years of sexist harassment and abuse on Hollywood sets.
In an Instagram video, the Underworld star said while she didn’t know Lively or Baldoni, she wanted to focus on the “machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something”.
“So this is not Christmassy at all and I do apologise but it is topical and I think it is very important. I’ve been following, as a lot of people have, this situation between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and I must stress I don’t know either of them, I’ve never met either of them and I wasn’t on the set so I can’t speak to any of that,” Beckinsale said.
“But what I will say is what it has highlighted is this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful or whatever in this industry.”
The Aviator star recalled being referred to as “that c***” on one film set because she had called out a male actor who was “drunk every day” and refused to learn his lines.
“I’ve been on a film, for example, where I was by the end of it referred to over the walkie-talkie and to my face as ‘that c***,’ because I had said I’m finding it very difficult, my co-star is drunk every day. He was going through something. I have sympathy for that, but I was waiting, as was the crew, for six hours a day for him to learn his lines,” Beckinsale said.
“It means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings the whole movie. The studio’s response was to give me a bike so I could ride around the studio lot while I was waiting. And then, of course, I was called a cunt and a bitch. During a take I was called a ‘stupid b****.’”
She narrated how she was “put on such a strict diet and exercise programme” on two sets that she “lost my periods all together”.
While filming for two other action movies, Beckinsale said she ended up in a “very unsafe fight situation” with male actors who physically hurt her.
“Sometimes, there’s a certain kind of actor who gets a thrill out of legally being able to harm a woman during a fight sequence,” she said.
“And I was harmed, to the point where there were MRIs proving it. What happened was, I was gaslit and made to feel like I was the problem, blamed and ostracised, left out of cast dinners, not spoken to as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.”
In another instance, Beckinsale said she was “forced by a publicist” to do a photoshoot a day after a miscarriage. “I said, ‘I can’t. I am bleeding. I don’t want to go and change my clothes in front of people I don’t know and do a photoshoot,” she said. “I’m bleeding out a miscarriage.’ She was like, ‘You’ll have to, or you’ll be sued.’”
In the video, Beckinsale also described being “felt up by somebody that I really trusted on a crew”, and then being told by fellow actresses that it didn’t happen.
She brought up disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein as well. Though she was “fortunate enough not to be shown a body part”, the actor said, Weinstein threatened to call “every director in town, magazine” to ensure that she received no work if she turned down a film.
The Pearl Harbor actor went on to say the harassment of women on set “has been going on forever”.
“I have about 47 million stories similar to this,” she said. “What is really depressing is I see a lot of men going around saying, ‘Oh, it was very different a while ago, you know, the climate is so different and it’s so much better.’ It f***ing isn’t!”
“If you mention it, you’re f***ed,” she added, saying that it’s extremely difficult for a woman with a legitimate complaint to be heard. It’s supposed to be, you absorb it and somehow you’re the homie. That has to stop. I am grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting this is not an archaic problem no one is facing. This is continuing. When it does happen a machine goes in place to absolutely destroy you.”
In a long caption for the post, Beckinsale demanded more action for keeping women safe at their workplaces. “Complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse, particularly at work where there should be inviolable safeguarding in place, and it should not be expected of women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused (mostly with at least 100 witnesses) to have to be ‘one of the boys’ and take it on the chin or face retribution for having been abused in the first place.”
In an 80-page legal complaint filed against Baldoni on 20 December, Lively alleged her co-star caused her “severe emotional distress” on the set of It Ends With Us and orchestrated a “smear campaign” against her after she asked for complaints to be addressed.
The suit said Lively had set out several requirements after raising concerns about Balidoni’s behavior on the set of the film, which he also directed.
These requirements included “no more showing nude videos or images of women to Blake, no more mention of Baldoni’s alleged previous ‘pornography addiction’, no more discussions about sexual conquests in front of Blake and others, no further mention of cast and crew’s genitalia, and no more inquiries about Blake’s weight”.
Though the film’s distributors, Sony Pictures, approved Lively’s requests, the lawsuit said, Baldoni began a campaign to “destroy” the Age of Adaline star’s reputation in response. She cited texts from Baldoni’s crisis PR representative as evidence.
After the filing was made public, Bryan Freedman, representing Baldoni, called Lively’s allegations “false, outrageous and intentionally salacious with an intent to publicly hurt”.
Freedman alleged that Lively had caused issues by “threatening to not show up to set, threatening to not promote the film, ultimately leading to its demise during release”.
