Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Lawrence recall assault, harassment, humiliation

Oscar winners Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Lawrence used their speeches at a Hollywood event honouring women to detail experiences of assault and harassment at the hands of directors and producers and pledged to do more to stop such situations from happening.

Witherspoon told the audience at the Elle Women in Hollywood Awards on Monday night that the recent revelation of decades of sexual misconduct allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein has prompted her own experiences to come back “very vividly.”

Witherspoon said she had “true disgust at the director who assaulted me when I was 16 years old and anger at the agents and the producers who made me feel that silence was a condition of my employment.”

Witherspoon didn’t name the director. Her publicist did not immediately respond to a request on Tuesday for further comment.

Lawrence detailed what she called a “degrading and humiliating” experience of being asked early on in her career to lose 15 pounds in two weeks for a role. She was then forced to pose nude alongside thinner women for photos that she said a female producer told her would serve as inspiration for her diet, she said.