Arguably Hollywood's most powerful actress has broken her silence.
Meryl Streep, one of the greatest female Hollywood actors of all time, has spoken out against former producer Harvey Weinstein following reports that he sexually harassed a number of women in the business.
Streep issued a statement directly to
The Huffington Post, in which she denied any previous knowledge of Weinstein's actions and condemned him completely after his sacking from The Weinstein Company.
Her statement reads: "
The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported. The intrepid women who raised their voices to expose this abuse are our heroes.
"One thing can be clarified. Not everybody knew. Harvey supported the work fiercely, was exasperating but respectful with me in our working relationship, and with many others with whom he worked professionally.
"I didn’t know about these other offenses: I did not know about his financial settlements with actresses and colleagues; I did not know about his having meetings in his hotel room, his bathroom, or other inappropriate, coercive acts. And If everybody knew, I don’t believe that all the investigative reporters in the entertainment and the hard news media would have neglected for decades to write about it.
"The behavior is inexcusable, but the abuse of power familiar. Each brave voice that is raised, heard and credited by our watchdog media will ultimately change the game.”
Last week, Weinstein was accused of a series of sexual harassments and assaults by a number of women over a number of decades. The majority of the accounts can be found
here.
In the days following the story breaking, Harvey had taken a leave of absence from the production company, but today it was officially announced by The Weinstein Company that he was being fired from the company outright, "in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days."
Harvey and his brother Bob had been co-founders of Miramax back in 1979, and continued to run the company after the acquisition by Disney in 1993.
Then in 2005, the brothers sold their share of the company to Disney - who then sold on Miramax elsewhere - and together they set up The Weinstein Company.
