Paris Hilton revealed in an interview with Glamour UK that she had an uncomfortable incident with Harvey Weinstein at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival when she was only 19 years old. Hilton was at the festival to attend the annual amfAR gala for AIDS research, which Weinstein was hosting that year. Hilton said she met Weinstein the day before the gala.
“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 said. “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’… and I just didn’t want to go, so I never went.”
Hilton said Weinstein got aggressive with her at the gala the next evening. She alleged that Weinstein followed her to the ladies bathroom and yelled at her, “Ya wanna be a star?”
“I went into the bathroom and then he followed me,” Hilton said. “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.”
When asked by Glamour UK if she had heard rumors about Weinstein’s behavior before meeting him at Cannes, Hilton answered, “Yeah, and it was just someone so powerful in Hollywood who everyone was terrified of. 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.’”
Weinstein did not return Glamour UK’s request for comment ahead of the magazine publishing their interview with Hilton, but when contacted by Varietyfor this article, a spokesperson for Weinstein denied Hilton’s allegations.
Speaking through his spokesperson from L.A. County Jail, Weinstein said “that this never happened” and that he “never yelled at her and never followed her.”
“He had always treated Paris Hilton with the utmost respect and kindness, and always believed they had a cordial relationship,” his spokesperson tells Variety. “There were many people at AmFar, and this is probably false. Unfortunately, Paris Hilton is trying to get in on the current news cycle using his name with yet another creative story. Too bad it’s all too convenient and seemingly popular to just say it without anything backing it up.”
A publicity representative for Hilton declined to comment in response to Weinstein when contacted by Variety.
Hilton’s interview with Glamour UK came out the same day Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison after being convicted in Los Angeles on three counts of rape and sexual assault. The former film producer was already serving a 23-year sentence in New York after being convicted of rape and sexual assault in that jurisdiction in a 2020 criminal trial. The Los Angeles judge ordered Weinstein to serve his L.A. sentence consecutively after New York, effectively ensuring he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Before he was sentenced in L.A., Weinstein addressed the court and said, “I maintain that I’m innocent. This is about money and coming after me. Please don’t sentence me to life in prison. I don’t deserve it… There are so many things wrong with this case. There is no evidence… This is a setup… I beg your mercy.”
Hilton is currently making the press rounds in support of her new book, “Paris: The Memoir,” which releases March 2.
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