Kate Beckinsale is detailing years of harassment and abuse she’s suffered on various sets throughout her acting career.
In an Instagram video uploaded to her account Sunday, the actress said speaking out felt “topical” and “very important” following Blake Lively’s recent allegations against her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni.
“I’ve never met either of them and I wasn’t on the set, so I can’t speak to any of that,” Beckinsale said. “But what I will say is, what it has highlighted is this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful or whatever in this industry.”
In the nearly five-minute video, the Canary Black actress went on to recall several instances where she was harassed throughout her career, including being referred to as “that cunt” on one film set because she called out her male co-star who she said was “drunk every day” on set.
“He’s obviously going through something, and I have full sympathy for that, but I’m also waiting, as was the crew, for six hours a day for him to learn his lines,” she explained. “It means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings, ever, for the whole movie. The studio’s response was to give me a bike so I could ride around the studio lot while I was waiting. And then, of course, I was called a cunt and a bitch. At one point during a take, I was called ‘you stupid bitch.’”
Beckinsale later recalled a group of people once standing in front of her, saying, “How do we make her attractive?” On two other sets, she said that she was “put on such a strict diet and exercise program” that she lost her periods altogether.
The Underworld actress said she’s also been put in an “unsafe fight situation” on two separate sets, including one male co-star physically harming her while filming the fight scene. And when she spoke up about being injured, Beckinsale said she was “ostracized” by the cast and crew.
“Sometimes there’s a certain kind of actor who gets kind of a thrill out of legally being able to harm a woman during a fight sequence,” Beckinsale said. “And I was harmed, to the point where there were MRIs proving it. And actually what happened was I was gaslit and made to feel like I was the problem, blamed and ostracized, and left out of cast dinners, not spoken to, as soon as I mentioned there was a problem.”
Elsewhere in the Instagram video, the Fool’s Paradise star recalled being “forced by a publicist” to do a photoshoot “the day after I had a miscarriage.”
“I said, ‘I can’t. I’m bleeding. I don’t want to go and change my clothes in front of people I don’t know and do a photoshoot. I’m bleeding out a miscarriage,’” Beckinsale recounted of the conversation. “And she was like, ‘You have to, or you’ll be sued.’”
Beckinsale went on to note the harassment that women often face on Hollywood sets “has been going on forever.”
“I have about 47 million stories similar to this,” she said. “I was, at the age of 18, felt up by somebody that I really trusted on a crew. Went to the lead actress, who’s known for being a supporter of women, and said this has happened and was told, ‘No, it didn’t.’ I went to another actress, crying, and said I’d just been assaulted by this man and again told, ‘No, you haven’t been.’”
The Prisoner’s Daughter actress continued, “So this has just been going on forever and what’s really depressing is I see a lot of men going around saying, ‘Oh, it was very different a while ago, you know, the climate’s so different and it’s so much better.’ It fucking isn’t!”
Beckinsale added that it’s nearly impossible for women to be heard on sets, and when they do speak up with a legitimate complaint, “you’re fucked.”
“If you mention it, you’re fucked,” she said. “It’s supposed to be, you absorb it and somehow you’re the homie. That has got to stop. That has to stop. And I am grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting this is not an archaic problem no one is facing. This is continuing. And then when it does happen, a machine goes in place to absolutely destroy you.”
In a lengthy caption on her post, Beckinsale also emphasized that she feels this is a problem that happens in every industry, but “it’s just that it’s a little bit more visible in ours.”
“Complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse, particularly at work where there should be inviolable safeguarding in place, and it should not be expected of women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused (mostly with at least 100 witnesses )to have to be ‘one of the boys’ and take it on the chin or face retribution for having been abused in the first place,” the actress wrote.
Beckinsale concluded her caption, “There are far too many casualties of this, many of whom I know personally, and it really falls to both men and women in our industry to be part of stamping this out for good.”