The 51-year-old actress recently claimed the disgraced movie mogul threatened to “break [her] kneecaps” when working on ‘Frida’, and though the 65-year-old producer “doesn’t recall saying such an awful thing”, he has admitted there was “creative friction” on set, but insisted his problems were with director Julie Taymor.
His spokesperson issued a statement which read: “As in most collaborative projects, there was creative friction on “Frida,” and in this case, it served to drive the project to perfection. It wasn’t an easy process and Mr. Weinstein apologises for the way he may have approached the situation. He hopes all involved can at least agree that the movie was fantastic.
“Mr. Weinstein apologises for his boorish behaviour following a screening of ‘Frida’, prompted by his disappointment in the cut of the movie – and a reason he took a firm hand in the final edit.
“However, his conflict was with Julie Taymor not Ms. Hayek.
“Mr. Weinstein never fought with Ms. Hayek on set and this comment does not reflect how he feels about her; he doesn’t recall ever saying such an awful thing.”
And though Salma – who has 10-year-old daughter Valentina with husband Francois-Henri Pinault – has previously accused Weinstein of sexually harassing her a number of times, the filmmaker insists they have always had a close personal and professional relationship.
The statement continued: “Over the 20 years plus since the movie’s success, Ms. Hayek and Mr. Weinstein’s daughters have had play dates, their families have enjoyed time together when running into each other on vacations, and the two have had dinners where they pitched and discussed projects such as Ms. Hayek asking Harvey to distribute her movie ‘Evelyn’ and Mr. Weinstein pitching her a remake of ‘The Lives of Others’ with Penelope Cruz about a South American dictatorship.”
Weinstein – who has been accused of sexual misconduct by dozens of women but has denied many of the allegations against him – issued a statement after Salma spoke to Oprah Winfrey about her experience on the set of the 2002 Frida Kahlo biopic.
She said: “He told me he wanted to kill me. He said to Julie Taymor, ‘I am going to break the kneecaps of that ‘c-word’.”
