Was sexually harassed by Hollywood film executive: Ashley Judd

Actor Ashley Judd has revealed she was sexually harassed by a top Hollywood studio executive.

The 47-year-old Divergent star said she was repeatedly summoned to hotel rooms while filming Kiss the Girls in the late 90s by the unnamed head of a rival studio and  asked to watch him shower, reported Daily Mirror.

“He was very stealth and expert about it. He groomed me, which is a technical term — ‘Oh, <g data-gr-id="24">come meet</g> at the hotel for something to eat.’ It went on in these stages. It was so disgusting.

“He physically lured me by saying, ‘Oh, help me pick out what I’m going to wear.’ There was a lot that happened between the point of entry and the bargaining. When I kept saying no to everything, there was a huge asymmetry of power and control in that room.” Judd said years later she found out that a number other female actor had also experienced the same thing.

“Only when we were sitting around talking about it did we realise our experiences were identical. There <g data-gr-id="30">was</g> a mutual strengthening and fortification of our resolve. 

“The ultimate thing was, ‘Will you watch me take a shower?’ And all the other women, sitting around this table with me, said, ‘Oh my god - that’s what he said to me too.’” 

The actor, who has never been offered a movie by the executive’s studio, went on to say she beat herself up for a while following the incident, before realising there was something “incredibly wrong and illegal about it”.