- Paris Hilton recalled an encounter with Harvey Weinstein in an interview with Glamour UK.
- Hilton said Weinstein followed her into the bathroom while screaming, "Ya wanna be a star?"
Paris Hilton recalled an encounter with disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival in an interview with Glamour UK published Thursday.
Hilton shared details with the outlet, saying the incident took place when she was 19 at the festival's annual amfAR gala. Hilton told Glamour UK that she met Weinstein the day before the gala, which he hosted that year.
"I was at lunch with my girlfriend and he came up to the table and was like, 'Oh, you want to be an actress?' And I said, "Yeah, I really want to be in a movie,'" Hilton told Glamour UK. "I was a teenager, so I was impressed by him. I was like, 'Oh my god, Harvey Weinstein is so cool!' and he said, 'Well, we should have a meeting. You can come up to my room and read scripts'… and I just didn't want to go, so I never went."
Hilton continued that Weinstein became hostile towards her at the gala by following her into the women's bathroom screaming, "Ya wanna be a star?"
"I went into the bathroom and then he followed me. He tried to open the door, he was hammering on the door, banging on it," Hilton told the outlet. "And I wouldn't open it, because I was like, 'I'm in a stall, why do you want to come in here?' And I just wouldn't open it. And security came and literally carried him away and he was like [shouting], 'This is my party,' going nuts. It scared me and freaked me out."
Hilton told Glamour UK said heard rumors at the time about Weinstein, but most people in the industry turned a "blind eye."
"Yeah, and it was just someone so powerful in Hollywood who everyone was terrified of," Hilton said. "I didn't even want to say anything about it because I was like, 'I don't want people getting mad at me for saying anything,' because it was just a known thing. He was just like that and people were like, 'OK, just turn a blind eye.'"
The outlet reported that Weinstein denied the bathroom incident and Hilton's allegations.
In the same interview, Hilton said she was drugged and raped by an older man when she was 15.
On Thursday, Hilton revealed that she and her husband Carter Reum named their son Phoenix Barron Hilton Reum after welcoming the child via surrogate in January. That same day, a judge sentenced Weinstein to 16 years in a Los Angeles County prison after he was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and rape in December 2022.
Weinstein's Los Angeles prison sentence will be served after his 23-year New York prison sentence. In February 2020, a New York jury found Weinstein guilty of rape and criminal sexual act.
Weinstein first faced backlash in October 2017 after The New Yorker published an expose featuring 13 women who alleged Weinstein sexually assaulted them. Of those 13, three accused Weinstein of rape.
More than 80 people have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, including actors Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Lupita Nyong'o, and Rose McGowan.