(Trigger Warning: The following article contains details of sexual assault)
Harvey Weinstein had threatened that Jennifer Aniston “should be killed”, according to a New York Times report that cited previously sealed court documents made public on 9 March. The producer had apparently made the statement in October 2017 during the beginning of the MeToo movement that was created in response to the numerous sexual misconduct allegations made against him.
Weinstein was apparently furious after he found out that the National Enquirer was planning to report he sexually assaulted Aniston.
As per another report by The Hollywood Reporter, records show that a spokeswoman for Harvey Weinstein forwarded him an email from the Enquirer. “Not sure if you saw this one. Jennifer Aniston,” wrote Sallie Hofmeister, a senior executive at the public relations firm Sitrick and Company.
The Enquirer‘s email said, “Jennifer confided to a friend that during the production of the 2005 movie Derailed , Weinstein sexually assaulted her by pressing up against her back in [sic] grabbing her buttocks. … Through the years he would frequently stare at her cleavage/breast and move his mouth around making Jennifer uncomfortable.”
Weinstein had replied to Hofmeister’s mail saying, “Jennifer Aniston should be killed.”
However, the National Enquirer never published the claims and a representative for Jennifer Aniston denied them. The Hollywood Reporter had reached out to Weinstein’s representative for a comment, but none was given.
The emails were included in sealed documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Weinstein, 67, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting former production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006 and raping former aspiring actor Jessica Mann in 2013.
(Inputs: New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)