Lili Reveals She Was Sexually Harassed by Co-Star
Last week, revelations that mega-producer Harvey Weinstein has a decades-long history of allegedly sexually assaulting actresses and a system to silence anyone who tries to report him led to his firing from his own production company. In the aftermath, many Hollywood actresses (and some actors) have felt emboldened to speak out about their experiences dealing with the pervasive issue of sexual assault in Tinseltown, from Cara Delvingne to Hilarie Burton.
One of those actresses is Riverdale star Lili Reinhart who took to Tumblr to share her experience with being sexually harassed by a co-star - an experience she said was a "scene right out of a horror movie."
"I feel the need to share a story of my own personal experience where a man in a position of power over me, used that said power to try and take advantage of me," Lili began her Tumblr post. "I was a teenager working on a project when I started to have a crush on a guy I was working with. He was incredibly charming and charismatic - we flirted for a while before we went on our first date. He was pretty significantly older than me, but I thought of myself as mature so it didn’t seem like a big deal."
Lili decided not to get specific about who it was who took advantage of her, but went on to reveal that whoever it was tried to force themselves on her during a date.
"I had to stop him and say 'no, I don’t want that,' and 'I can’t do that.' I physically walked away from the situation before it could get any worse. I remember feeling like this was a scene right out of a horror movie."
Sadly, the horrible experience didn't end there.
"After awkward silence and me feeling completely violated and uncomfortable, he convinced me to get in his car - I assumed he was going to drive me home," Lili continued. "I didn’t have any money and couldn’t afford a taxi or an Uber. So I figured it was okay. As we were driving, I realized he was trying to take me back to his apartment. And I knew if I made it there, something bad was going to happen to me. I told him to drop me off at my home, that I didn’t want to go back to his place. He said some snarky comment but reluctantly brought me to where I was staying."
Lili tried to talk to him the next day about the experience and express to him how wrong and uncomfortable it made her feel, but he wasn't receptive.
"Thinking back on it now, the situation is hard for me to swallow," Lili said. "I was so young and didn’t know how to handle the situation. I just knew how wrong it felt and that I had been violated."
In the end, the man tried to blame her for the situation.
"This guy proceeded to tell me that it was my fault for leading him on. Saying that 'I seemed like a sexual girl and that I’d be down for it.' That I misled him. Days following, he grew angry at the situation and became defensive about it and his actions. Claiming that I was 'a tease' and 'the most manipulative woman he’d ever met.' His ego was bruised to say the least, because I refused to engage with him sexually that night."
At the time, Lili felt like she had been the one who did something wrong.
"He refused to talk to me," she continued. "I remember begging him to come outside his trailer so we could talk. I needed clarity on the situation. I felt like I had genuinely done something wrong - that maybe I really was being a tease to him and led him to believe that I wanted to be with him sexually. I was miserable. And I felt that I needed to keep my mouth shut about the entire situation because 1. I figured no one would believe me and 2. he played a much bigger role in this project than me... he had more power. If I said something, maybe the production would be halted… people would be put out of work. I would be looked at as dramatic and a diva, no one would want to work with me again."
Because of her experience, Lili knows exactly why woman who have been sexually assaulted are so hesitant to speak out and she hopes that in the aftermath of the Harvey Weinstein revelations, people in the industry will take action to stop sexual assault in the workplace.
"I understand how these women feel - the women coming forward about being harassed and assaulted by Harvey Weinstein," Lili wrote in conclusion. "Feeling that they’d rather keep quiet at the time than start a discussion that could lead to them being called a liar or overly dramatic. I stand with them. I believe them. I believe in standing up for yourself as a woman and coming forward about sexual harassment. I’m coming forward about my own experience to further express how common these assaults are in this industry and how important it is that we take action to fight against it."
Noelle Devoe is the Entertainment Web Editor at Seventeen.com. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram!
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