WARNING: The above video shows a car crash and injury, which may be too graphic for some viewers. Please watch at your own discretion
Uma Thurman posted a video — showing her Kill Bill car crash — to her personal Instagram account on Monday, seeking to “memorialize” the New York Times article, published Saturday, which documented her alleged sexual assault at the hands of Harvey Weinstein.
The article, written by NYT staff member Maureen Dowd, outlined a series of disturbing vignettes allegedly suffered by Thurman, among them a harrowing description of a car crash during filming of the Quentin Tarantino movie. (Here is the completed scene from the movie.)
During the episode on location in Mexico, Thurman claims that Tarantino ignored her expressed fears of driving a car that she had been warned might be faulty.
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Tarantino persuaded her to do it, the article said, quoting him as saying, “Hit 40 miles per hour or your hair won’t blow the right way and I’ll make you do it again.”
Video accompanying the article — you can watch a shortened version, above — shows Thurman struggling to control the car and crashing into a tree.
Thurman said in the article “that was a deathbox that I was in,” the seat “wasn’t screwed down properly” and the sand road “was not a straight road.” She said that after the crash she left a hospital in a neck brace with damaged knees and a concussion. She claims to suffer from those injuries to this day.
In Monday’s Instagram post, Thurman insists that she doesn’t hold Tarantino responsible for her injuries and the subsequent “coverup” of the incident, even though he was technically the one who forced her to do the stunt. She says Tarantino is courageous for giving her the footage, knowing it could have caused him much professional and personal damage.
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It appears that she blames Weinstein and producers Lawrence Bender and E. Bennett Walsh for the crash and alleged coverup. Talent reps Creative Artists Agency (CAA) also never sent anyone to the scene, she writes, which she implies is negligent.
Her post reads:
“i post this clip to memorialize it’s full exposure in the nyt by Maureen Dowd.
the circumstances of this event were negligent to the point of criminality.
i do not believe though with malicious intent.
Quentin Tarantino, was deeply regretful and remains remorseful about this sorry event, and gave me the footage years later so i could expose it and let it see the light of day, regardless of it most likely being an event for which justice will never be possible.
he also did so with full knowledge it could cause him personal harm, and i am proud of him for doing the right thing and for his courage.
THE COVER UP after the fact is UNFORGIVABLE.
for this i hold Lawrence Bender, E. Bennett Walsh, and the notorious Harvey Weinstein solely responsible.
they lied, destroyed evidence, and continue to lie about the permanent harm they caused and then chose to suppress.
the cover up did have malicious intent, and shame on these three for all eternity.
CAA never sent anyone to Mexico.
i hope they look after other clients more respectfully if they in fact want to do the job for which they take money with any decency.”
Thurman told Dowd that an early encounter with Weinstein in a Paris hotel room in the 1990s ended with him suddenly appearing in a bathrobe and leading her to a steam room but that the first “attack” – the word appears in quotes – happened later in London.
“He pushed me down,” she said. “He tried to shove himself on me. He tried to expose himself. He did all kinds of unpleasant things. But he didn’t actually put his back into it and force me. You’re like an animal wriggling away, like a lizard.”
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Later, she alleged, she arranged a meeting with Weinstein and warned him: “If you do what you did to me to other people you will lose your career, your reputation and your family, I promise you.”
The Times article says Thurman’s memory of the Weinstein encounter stops there, but it quotes a friend who was waiting downstairs as saying Thurman emerged from an elevator dishevelled and shaking.
“Her eyes were crazy, and she was totally out of control,” said the friend, Ilona Herman.
When Thurman was able to talk again, Herman said, she revealed that Weinstein, who was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood, had threatened to derail her career.
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A representative for Thurman, Leslie Sloane, responded to an Associated Press request for more details on all the encounters by saying only: “The article speaks for itself.”
Weinstein, the executive producer of award-winning movies including Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Good Will Hunting and Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, acknowledged making an “awkward pass” at Thurman but denied physical assault and emphasized a longstanding professional relationship with her.
“Mr. Weinstein acknowledges making an awkward pass 25 years ago at Ms. Thurman in England after misreading her signals, after a flirtatious exchange in Paris, for which he immediately apologized and deeply regrets,” his representative Holly Baird said in an emailed statement. “However, her claims about being physically assaulted are untrue.”
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The statement questioned why Thurman waited 25 years to make her allegations public and said numerous photographs show Thurman and Weinstein had a “strong relationship” for many years.
Thurman, one of the stars of Pulp Fiction, also was quoted as saying that just before shooting began on Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1, which came out in 2003, she told Tarantino about Weinstein and he confronted the mogul, leading him to apologize.
So far, Tarantino has not responded to the article or to the accusations.
Weinstein has been accused of sexual assault and harassment by more than 100 different women around the world. He has vehemently denied, through a representative, all accusations of non-consensual sex.
— With files from The Associated Press
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