Amid the shocking sex abuse scandal swirling around disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, Riverdale actress Lili Reinhart is opening up about a traumatic experience she endured earlier in her career.
The 21-year-old actress took to Tumblr on Wednesday to share her ‘own personal experience where a man in a position of power over’ her ‘used that said power to try and take advantage of’ her.
Reinhart said she was uncomfortable ‘giving specific details about the situation,’ before explaining the chain of events that had occurred, adding that ‘all that matters is that he tried to force himself on [her] when we were on a date.’
Opening up: Lili Reinhart, 21, shared her harrowing tale of sexual harassment Wednesday on Tumblr amid the flood of sad and shocking stories of sex abuse in Hollywood in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal
The CW star said that the incident occurred when she was a teenager and ‘started to have a crush on a guy [she] was working with.’
She said that the man was ‘incredibly charming and charismatic’ and ‘significantly older than’ her, but she felt she was mature and that the age discrepancy wasn’t an issue.
She said that as the man made his physical advances on her, she ‘had to stop him and say “no, I don’t want that,” and “I can’t do that.”’
Talented: The actress plays Betty Cooper on The CW series Riverdale
Out and about: The star was snapped at an industry event in NYC this past May
Reinhart, feeling ‘completely violated and uncomfortable,’ said she walked away from the man, who cajoled her to get in his car, as she thought he would take her home.
She said that the man tried to bring her to his house, and with a premonition that ‘something bad was going to happen to’ her, she told him to take her home.
‘He said some snarky comment but reluctantly brought me to where I was staying,’ Reinhart said, adding that she spoke with him about the incident the following day, but the man remained defiant.
‘This guy proceeded to tell me that it was my fault for leading him on,’ she wrote. ‘Saying that, “I seemed like a sexual girl and that I’d be down for it.” That I misled him.’
Reinhart said the man’s hostility continued to escalate because she ‘refused to engage with him sexually that night,’ as he called her ‘a tease’ and ‘the most manipulative woman he’d ever met’ after she spurned his sexual advances.
‘He refused to talk to me,’ the Forever’s End actress wrote. ‘I remember begging him to come outside his trailer so we could talk … 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.’
Traumatic: The performer said she was left ‘completely violated and uncomfortable’ in the wake of the incident
Opening up: The actress pledged her support to the women who have emerged amid the Harvey Weinstein scandal
The Surviving Jack star said that she was ‘miserable’ in the aftermath, but kept quiet because she felt people wouldn’t believe her, as well as the fact that ‘he played a much bigger role in this project than’ she did.
‘If I said something, maybe the production would be halted,’ she added. ‘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.’
The Kings of Summer actress said that she related to the ongoing stories streaming in about Weinstein, and understood why his alleged victims would ‘rather keep quiet at the time than start a discussion that could lead to them being called a liar or overly dramatic.’
Before the fall: Weinstein was seen in NYC last month, just weeks before his personal and professional free fall
Those days are over, Reinhart said, adding that she’s shared her own story ‘to further express how common these assaults are in this industry and how important it is that we take action to fight against it.’
The Not Waving But Drowning actress said she got emotional in recalling the sequence of events, which remain ‘hard for [her] to swallow.
‘I was so young and didn’t know how to handle the situation,’ she said. ‘I just knew how wrong it felt and that I had been violated.’