Meryl Streep has fired back at Harvey Weinstein after the disgraced movie producer’s legal team used her name and one of her statements in an attempt to dismiss a sexual misconduct lawsuit against him.

On Tuesday this week (February 20th), Weinstein’s lawyers had filed a motion to dismiss a racketeering lawsuit brought by six women who claimed the mogul sexually assaulted or harassed them. They argued that what they called the ‘Weinstein Sexual Enterprise’ was essentially a criminal organisation, given the “hundreds” of women who have come forward with allegations of misconduct in the last four months.

In doing so, his team’s motion to dismiss mentioned that in a recent statement, Streep said that Weinstein “had always been respectful to her in their working relationship.”

Meryl StreepMeryl Streep hit back at Harvey Weinstein for using her statements in his legal defence

“Harvey Weinstein’s attorneys’ use of my (true) statement — that he was not sexually transgressive or physically abusive in our business relationship — as evidence that he was not abusive with many OTHER women is pathetic and exploitive,” Streep said in a statement the following day, condemning Weinstein’s tactic.

“The criminal actions he is accused of conducting on the bodies of these women are his responsibility, and if there is any justice left in the system he will pay for them — regardless of how many good movies, made by many good people, Harvey was lucky enough to have acquired or financed.”

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In the filing obtained by The Blast, Weinstein’s team also cited statements by other A-list stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lawrence in his effort to have the motion blocked.

“Such women would include, presumably, Jennifer Lawrence, who told Oprah Winfrey she had known Weinstein since she was 20 years old and said ‘he had only ever been nice to me’,” the document stated.

Regarding Paltrow, the filing reportedly says that she “went on to star in another Weinstein production (Shakespeare In Love) and even won an Oscar for her role… …Paltrow was not so offended that she refused to work with Weinstein again, nor did her career suffer as a result of her rebuffing his alleged advances.”

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