Harvey Weinstein responds to Salma Hayek's claims

Following Salma Hayek's horrifying account of her experiences with Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced producer has broken his public silence and refuted the claims of harassment and abuse the actress alleged.

The 51-year-old star wrote a piece for The New York Times on Thursday, detailing years of threats and abuse she was subjected to by Weinstein, writing "For years, he was my monster" and claimed the 65-year-old even threatened to kill her when he didn't get his own way.

However Weinstein released a statement where he claims he has always been a vocal supporter of Hayek's and "all of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired", but does admit to "boorish behaviour".

It is the first time Weinstein has released a statement refuting claims after numerous women have come out and claimed they were subjected to years of sexual abuse and harassment at the hands of the producer, following the original New York Times exposé in October.

In Hayek's account for the publication, she claimed Weinstein bullied her, forced her to do a lesbian sex scene in the movie Frida, and even threatened to kill her.

Hayek wrote that after Weinstein "took a chance on me - a nobody" and agreed that his film studio Miramax would work alongside the actress to help make her movie about Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, she repeatedly turned down his constant advances for years.

"Little did I know it would become my turn to say no," Hayek said. "No to opening the door to him at all hours of the night, hotel after hotel, location after location, where he would show up unexpectedly, including one location where I was doing a movie he wasn’t even involved with.

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"No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral sex. No to my getting naked with another woman. No, no, no, no, no..."

She continued saying in hindsight she believes it may have been her friendships with director Robert Rodriguez and producer Elizabeth Avellan, as well as Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney "that saved me from being raped."

After years of rejecting Weinstein's advances, the Desperado actress says he soon became aggressive, making absurd demands and bullying and threatening her.

"The range of his persuasion tactics went from sweet-talking me to that one time when, in an attack of fury, he said the terrifying words, 'I will kill you, don’t think I can't.'"

However she added Weinstein soon found another way to make her suffer, threatening to give the lead role of Frida to another actress.

"When he was finally convinced that I was not going to earn the movie the way he had expected, he told me he had offered my role and my script with my years of research to another actress," she added.

"In his eyes, I was not an artist. I wasn’t even a person. I was a thing: not a nobody, but a body."

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