Thandie Newton was groomed by a director at 16
Thandie Newton was groomed by a director when she was 16.
The 47-year-old actress felt the experience she had on set in her teens made her "super-vulnerable" to other predators.
She told Vulture: "We didn't talk about it at the time but the damage was so done. It just made me super-vulnerable to predators. There's so much about not having a sense of my value. It was like I had to give something back for being noticed. You get predators and sexual abusers, they can smell it a mile off. It's like a shark smelling blood in the water."
Meanwhile, the 'Westworld' star had previously opened up about the sexual abuse she experienced, admitting she was "paralysed by fear".
Speaking about her experience on the set of 'Flirting', she shared: "It happened the night my father flew home. I was 16, and a virgin. I'd been psychologically groomed over weeks. I didn't fight him off, I was almost paralysed with fear. It was sexual abuse."
And explaining another terrible incident she faced, she added: "I'd been called back for a second audition. The director asked me to sit with my legs apart; the camera was positioned where it could see up my skirt. He asked me to put my leg over the arm of the chair and think about the character I was supposed to be having the dialogue with and how it felt to be made love to by this person. He was a director. I was still very young and thought it must be normal."
And Thandie feels the movie business "preys on young people".
She said: "This business preys on young people. I saw it everywhere. What I'm crying about now, it's not about the sexual abuse I endured, it's about the people who didn't have the courage to protect me, who didn't listen to me. They are the people who need to be held to account. All those people around Weinstein ... it's the rape culture, the climate of silencing, that is what once destroyed me and what now fires me up."
