When Salma Hayek Said Harvey Weinstein Called Her 'Ugly', Pointed at Her 'Monobrow and Moustache'

Editor's note: This article was originally published on June 30, 2023. It has since been updated.

Salma Hayek is a Hollywood A-list celebrity, but the actress had a difficult start to her career. The Oscar nominee has frequently spoken out about the film industry's dark side and how many producers mistreated actors. Hayek herself allegedly experienced some horrific situations in her early years in Hollywood, including sexual harassment and intimidation by Harvey Weinstein. The actress once revealed that she was humiliated during the filming of her 2002 critically acclaimed film Frida because Weinstein did not like her look as Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. 

In an interview with The Guardian in 2021, Hayek opened up about these experiences, particularly how she felt after this bullying. Weinstein "is not the only man to reassure himself by knowing he can destroy women," she says, adding that she may have normalized this bullying 'to a degree.' She continued, "I would shake afterward, and it did depress me, but there was a cartoon aspect about the whole thing. When he would call me up [during the making of Frida] and scream, 'Why do you have a monobrow and mustache? I didn't hire you to look ugly!' I was like, 'But didn't you ever look at a picture of Frida Kahlo?' If a man was playing Cyrano de Bergerac, he wouldn't say, 'What’s with the nose?'"

Hayek penned a scathing column for the New York Times in 2017 about how Weinstein harassed her for years and how she kept saying no. She wrote, "No to me taking a shower with him. No to letting him watch me take a shower. No to letting him give me a massage. No to letting a naked friend of his give me a massage. No to letting him give me oral s*x. No to my getting naked with another woman. No no no no no. And with every refusal came Harvey's Machiavellian rage."

Hayek, who was born and grew up in Mexico, was also questioned in the interview about which was a bigger issue for her in Hollywood: harassment or racism. "Well, it comes hand in hand. When they disrespect your background, they feel you're weaker, and they prey on weakness," she said. 

When asked if she has lost many roles because of her Mexican identity, Hayek said, "So many! I’m not going to name names, but there was one part written for me, for a Mexican, and it was played by not even a Latina." A director even refused her a part in the film because it 'wasn’t written Latin.' She revealed that the director thought '[she] wouldn’t be believable [in a romance with Ford].'