Hollywood actor Kate Beckinsale, known for films like "Pearl Harbor", "Van Helsing" and "Serendipity", has revealed that she was forced to do a photoshoot soon after suffering a miscarriage. Beckinsale's comments come days after Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against her "It Ends With Us" co-star and director Justin Baldoni on allegations of sexual harassment and about running a smear campaign against her.
The 51-year-old actor shared a video on her Instagram handle on Monday saying she was assaulted at 18 while on set and subsequently dismissed by two female colleagues.
Beckinsale said it becomes difficult when "a woman complains about something legitimately offensive, upsetting, harmful or whatever in this industry." "I've been forced by a publicist that I was employing to do a photo shoot the day after I'd had a miscarriage. I said, 'I can't, I'm bleeding. I don't want to go and change my clothes in front of people that I don't know and do a photo shoot. I'm bleeding out a miscarriage.' And she was like, 'You have to, or you'll be sued'," she said in the video.
The actor recollected how she once pointed out that her male co-star was coming late and drunk to the sets back to back but was abused in response.
"My co-star is drunk every day, and he's obviously going through something, and I have full sympathy for that. But I'm also waiting, as is the whole crew, six hours a day for him to learn his lines, and it means I'm not getting to see my daughter in the evenings ever for the whole movie," she said.
Beckinsale said everyone in every industry "should be taken seriously and not punished when something egregious happens to them at work."
nm "Complaining about abuse should not beget more abuse, particularly at work where there should be inviolable safeguarding in place, and it should not be expected of women who have been harmed, insulted, hurt, shamed or in any other way abused (mostly with at least 100 witnesses) to have to be 'one of the boys' and take it on the chin or face retribution for having been abused in the first place," she captioned her post.
While she was sharing these comments in light of Lively and Baldoni, the actor said she does not personally know either of them and cannot speak to what allegedly happened on set.
"I don't want anybody, male or female who has a legitimate complaint to then have that weaponised against them in any industry, anywhere, and I mention this in association with Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni because our industry makes things more visible due to the press and the public getting deliberately involved and led towards an opinion they don't realise is deliberate."
"There are far too many casualties of this, many of whom I know personally ,and it really falls to both men and women in our industry to be part of stamping this out for good," she continued in the caption.
Beckinsale was last seen in "Canary Black", an action-thriller film directed by Pierre Morel.
