Jennifer’s proximity to Harvey Weinstein at this time didn’t help, either. After apologizing to her “little rascal” for failing to mention him during her 2013 Oscars acceptance speech, the pair had kept up a friendly rapport in the public eye.
But in 2017, misconduct accusations started mounting against the producer thick and fast, including a range of harassment and abuse claims made by well-known public figures. At the time, Jennifer admitted that she was finding the allegations difficult to process.
“I had known him since I was 20, and he had only ever been nice to me — except for the moments that he wasn’t, and then I called him an asshole, and we moved on,” she explained. “He was paternal to me.”
Her candor on the topic wound up backfiring in February 2018 when Weinstein and his legal team used the quote in his defense while attempting to dismiss another harassment lawsuit.
His attorneys strategically name-dropped Jennifer, Meryl Streep, and Gwyneth Paltrow in a bid to argue that the three women supported him. Jennifer and Meryl wound up retaliating by issuing statements against Weinstein, directly calling out the way his attorneys took their words out of context. “This is what predators do, and it must stop,” Jennifer told CNN at the time.
But, unfortunately, her association with Weinstein didn’t end there. At the end of that same year, a woman claimed in another misconduct case against Weinstein that he had bragged about having sex with Jennifer, apparently saying: “I slept with Jennifer Lawrence and look where she is; she has just won an Oscar.” The same day the lawsuit was filed, Jennifer hit back in another statement vehemently denying ever having had sex with Weinstein.
However, the damage was already done. As the #MeToo movement picked up steam, uniting women as they shared their stories and fought against harassment and abuse, Jennifer was positioned firmly on the outside of the sisterhood.
