Kate Beckinsale Opens About Being 'Gaslit' & 'Ostracized' As She Stands Up for Blake Lively
After Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against her It Ends With Us co-star Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment and retaliation earlier this month, celebs have been sending their message of support. And while most of those have stemmed from other cast members, fellow A-lister Kate Beckinsale is taking it one step further and shining a light on the “archaic” system as a whole.
On Instagram, Beckinsale shared one of her most candid videos yet in response to the Lively-Baldoni drama. She started off by saying that while she’s never met either actor, she said Lively’s lawsuit “highlighted this machine that goes into effect when a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful, whatever, in this industry.”
Beckinsale then went on to list a few of her personal experiences with speaking out in the past. In one instance, she spoke out to production after her co-star repeatedly arrived drunk to set. “My costar is drunk every day and he’s obviously going through something and I have full sympathy for that, but I’m also waiting, as is the whole crew, six hours a day, for him to learn his lines,” she told the execs at the time. “And it means I’m not getting to see my daughter in the evenings, ever, for the whole movie.'”
Their response? Beckinsale was given a bike to ride around on set while she waited for him and was referred to – both via walkie-talkie and in-person– as “that c–,” “bitch” and a “stupid b—.”
Another instance occurred on set during two action movies where she was put in an “unsafe fight situation on two different films with two different actors.” “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,” she explained. “And I was harmed.”
After getting hurt, Beckinsale had to go to the doctors and get “MRIs proving” her injury. Instead of being taken care of, however, production retaliated.
“What then happened was I was gaslit and made to feel like I was the problem, blamed, ostracized, left out of cast dinners, not spoken to, as soon as I mentioned there was a problem,” she said.
In another instance, Beckinsale said she was “put on such a strict diet-and-exercise program on one movie that I lost my periods altogether.” “That’s happened twice,” she said.
At the end of the video, in which she also talked about having to do a photo shoot after suffering a miscarriage and being blacklisted by Harvey Weinstein after turning down a role, she reflected on how the industry has perpetuated this kind of behavior.
“This is going on, this has been going on forever, I’ve got about 47 million stories similar to this,” she reflected. “That’s got to stop.”
“I’m grateful to Blake Lively for highlighting that this is not an archaic problem that no one’s facing — this is continuing,” she said. “And then when it does happen, a machine goes into place to absolutely destroy you. And I’m sure that’s the case in other industries as well, and it’s just got to stop.”
As a reminder, Lively accuses Baldoni of sexual harassment, retaliation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Among the claims are that Baldoni showed nude images and videos of women to Lively, that he confided about his former “pornography addiction” to her, discussed Lively’s postpartum weight, and shared intimate details of his sexual life.
“I hope that my legal action helps pull back the curtain on these sinister retaliatory tactics to harm people who speak up about misconduct and helps protect others who may be targeted,” Lively said in a statement to the New York Times after filing.
Knowing that Beckinsale has just opened up about her own harrowing experiences, it seems Lively’s actions are already making a change.
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