Paris Hilton says Harvey Weinstein followed her to the ladies’ toilets when she was 19

Paris Hilton has detailed a troubling encounter with Harvey Weinstein for the first time, which allegedly happened when she was 19.

Hilton alleged that the incident took place at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000, where Weinstein approached Hilton after he heard that she wanted to go into acting.

“I was at lunch with my girlfriend and he came up to the table and was like, ‘Oh, you want to be an actress?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I really want to be in a movie,’” Hilton told Glamour UK.

“I was a teenager, so I was impressed by him. I was like, ‘Oh my god, Harvey Weinstein is so cool!’ and he said, ‘Well, we should have a meeting. You can come up to my room and read scripts,’” she said. “And I just didn’t want to go, so I never went.”

The two reportedly encountered each other again at the amfAR (The Foundation for AIDS research) gala, which Weinstein was hosting. He then allegedly followed her into the ladies’ toilets screaming at her, “Ya wanna be a star?”

“I went into the bathroom and then he followed me,” Hilton recalled. “He tried to open the door, he was hammering on the door, banging on it. And I wouldn’t open it, because I was like, ‘I’m in a stall, why do you want to come in here?’ And I just wouldn’t open it. And security came and literally carried him away and he was like [shouting], ‘This is my party,’ going nuts. It scared me and freaked me out.”

Hilton hadn’t spoken up about the incident at the time, but she had heard the rumours circulating in Hollywood about Weinstein. “[he] was just someone so powerful in Hollywood who everyone was terrified of,” she continued. “I didn’t even want to say anything about it because I was like, ‘I don’t want people getting mad at me for saying anything,’ because it was just a known thing. He was just like that and people were like, ‘OK, just turn a blind eye.’”

According to Glamour, Weinstein denies that the incident ever happened.

On Thursday (February 23), Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 16 additional years in prison, three months after he was convicted on three counts of rape and sexual assault.

The disgraced film producer is currently serving a 23-year sentence for a 2020 conviction of two counts of rape and sexual assault in New York. With his new sentence, his remaining prison time has nearly doubled.

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