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Canadian actress Larissa Gomes alleges Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her

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Oct. 17, 2017, 3:45 p.m.

Canadian actress Larissa Gomes alleges Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed her

 (Lilly Lawrence / Getty Images)
(Lilly Lawrence / Getty Images)

A Canadian actress added her voice to the chorus of women bringing allegations against Harvey Weinstein, saying the producer asked her to bare her chest and tried to kiss her on the lips while name-dropping famous actresses and dangling career opportunities.

Larissa Gomes was a 21-year-old actress about 17 years ago when she was working on the Toronto set of “Get Over It,” a Miramax-produced teen flick, she wrote in an account emailed to The Times this week. Weinstein approached her and asked for her opinion about the production, and mentioned multiple films his company shoots in Canada each year.

“I had literally just began acting … and here I was meeting the most powerful producer of the time,” she wrote. “It was intoxicating, it was validating.”

Gomes, who has since appeared in the film “Saw VI” and television shows “Supernatural” and “La Femme Nikita,” said Weinstein asked her for her personal number through an assistant, then set up a breakfast meeting at his hotel. The first meeting was professional, after which he asked to meet again in his hotel room, this time in the early evening, Gomes said.

After plopping down a stack of scripts in front of her that he said he wanted her to read, he went into his bedroom and asked her to come in, she recounted.

Weinstein was on his bed, saying he had a headache, she said. He asked her to lie down with him and asked her to take her shirt off so he could see her breasts, Gomes said. She left the room, and he followed in a bathrobe and started massaging her shoulders and neck despite her saying she didn’t want it, Gomes said.

“He would not stop. He just kept pushing his hands close to my chest forcefully until I finally was able to get up and away from him,” she wrote.

Weinstein told her, “You know, Gwyneth Paltrow and Ashley Judd were exactly where you are at one point. Look at them now,” Gomes recounted.

Gomes said she made an excuse to leave at that point, and Weinstein, at the door, grabbed her and tried to kiss her on the lips. She said she turned her head, and he sneered. She never saw or spoke to him again.

“I was silent … I wasn’t even sure if this was considered assault, in my mind I thought that since I got away then it isn’t,” she wrote. “I was very young and vulnerable, and that was what he was banking on.”

In an interview, Gomes said she never got over her encounter with Weintein.

“I was so incredibly discouraged and disillusioned. I didn’t know if I wanted to be a part of the industry any more if this is what it was,” she said. “This was definitely...something I’d never forget.”

More than 30 women have alleged they were sexually harassed or assaulted by Weinstein. The disgraced mogul has expressed remorse about his behavior but has denied having nonconsensual sex with women.

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