Meryl Streep is p*ssed and with good reason.
When numerous sexual harassment and assault allegations emerged against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein last year, Streep was among the first major industry players to speak out, calling Weinstein’s behaviour “disgraceful,” “inexcusable,” and an “abuse of power.”
Streep has also said that she didn’t experience such behaviour from Weinstein herself, and now her words are being used against her in a 26-page memorandum of law accompanying yesterday’s motion to have a sexual misconduct class-action suit from Louisette Geiss, Katherine Kendall, Zoe Brock, Sarah Ann Masse, Melissa Sagemiller and Nannette Klatt dismissed.
Lawyers from Los Angeles’ Kupferstein Manuel LLP and New York City’s Morrison Cohen LLP wrote “these proposed class definitions are fatally overbroad as to be not ascertainable.” They used a number of high profile industry members, including Streep, Oprah Winfrey and Jennifer Lawrence in their argument.
“As drafted, they would include all women who ever met with Weinstein, regardless of whether they claimed to have suffered any identifiable harm as a result of that meeting,” the memo says. “Such women would include, presumably, Jennifer Lawrence, who told Oprah Winfrey she had known Weinstein since she was 20 years old and said ‘he had only ever been nice to me,’ and Meryl Streep, who stated publicly that Weinstein had always been respectful to her in their working relationship.”
Streep has made her feelings clear regarding having her name used in this way. She told Deadline: “Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys use of my (true) statement — that he was not sexually transgressive or physically abusive in our business relationship — as evidence that he was not abusive with many OTHER women is pathetic and exploitive.”
She continues: “The criminal actions he is accused of conducting on the bodies of these women are his responsibility, and if there is any justice left in the system he will pay for them — regardless of how many good movies, made by many good people, Harvey was lucky enough to have acquired or financed.”
