Madonna: Harvey Weinstein 'Crossed Lines'

Describes movie mogul as 'incredibly sexually flirtatious' with her
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 6, 2019 10:55 AM CDT
Madonna: Harvey Weinstein 'Crossed Lines'
Madonna performs during the Women's March on Washington on Jan. 21, 2017.   (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

At 60, Madonna reflects on a career that wasn't all sunshine and roses in a New York Times feature out Wednesday. In the process, she describes publicly for the first time the stain that was her interaction with Harvey Weinstein during the making of her 1991 documentary, Truth or Dare, distributed by the Weinstein-owned Miramax. He "crossed lines" and was "incredibly sexually flirtatious and forward with me," even though "he was married at the time, and I certainly wasn't interested," she says. Madonna says she knew Weinstein acted the same way with other women in Hollywood, but the general reaction was that "he's got so much power and he's so successful and his movies do so well and everybody wants to work with him, so you have to put up with it."

Madonna was also asked about the time Donald Trump, pretending to be his own publicist, called People magazine in 1991 claiming Madonna wanted to date him. In her telling, she simply spoke to the future president on the phone while shooting a Versace campaign at his home in Palm Beach. "He kept going: 'Hey, is everything OK? Finding yourself comfortable? Are the beds comfortable? Is everything good? Are you happy?'" she says. Describing Trump as weak, she adds "a man who is secure with himself ... doesn't have to go around bullying people all the time." Madonna also describes being "devastated" by poor sales of her 2015 album, Rebel Heart. Her follow-up album, Madame X, out June 14, is being described as perhaps her "boldest" and "most bizarre" to date. (More Madonna stories.)

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