Harvey Weinstein Now Accused Of Rape As A-Listers Come Forward

LOS ANGELES, CA — Within hours of Harvey Weinstein’s ousting, A-list celebrities and aspiring actresses came forward Tuesday with allegations of sexual harassment and rape at the hands of one of the most powerful people in Hollywood.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie told The New York Times they were sexually harassed by the powerful producer. The New Yorker published explosive accounts of young actresses saying they were sexually assaulted by Weinstein in grotesquely orchestrated rapes and that speaking out meant career suicide or character assassination.

Weinstein’s behavior was an open secret at his companies and throughout the industry, according to his accusers. Through his spokesperson, Weinstein denied the accusations of sexual assault.

Watch: Gwenyth Paltrow And Angelina Jolie Open Up About Harvey Weinstein

On Tuesday, an audio recording surfaced from a New York Police Department sting operation in which Weinstein tries to browbeat a young model/actress into his hotel room a day after she alleged he groped her in his office. The tape mirrors the accounts of other accusers, including well-known Hollywood figures, such as Ashley Judd.

Ambra Battilana Gutierrez met with Weinstein in his New York office where she alleges he groped her despite her protestations. According to The New Yorker, she went straight to the NYPD and agreed to wear a wire for her next meeting with Weinstein at his hotel.

A voice identified by The New Yorker as Weinstein can be heard on the police's recording commanding, cajoling and threatening Gutierrez to get her into his room.

“Can’t I wait at the bar,” she asks.

“No. You must come here now,” the male voice barks.

“No, I don’t want to…”

“I am not doing anything with you. I promise."

“No. Yesterday was kind of aggressive for me,” said Gutierrez.

“I know,” responded Weinstein. “I won’t do a thing. I swear I won’t. Just sit with me. Don’t embarrass me in the hotel, I’m here all the time.”

Gutierrez continues to try to get away.

“I want to go downstairs,” she tells him.

He continues to order her into the room and into his bathroom.

“I’m not going to do anything,” he said. “You’ll never see me again after this. OK. That’s it. If you don’t — if you embarrass me in this hotel where I am staying… Honey, don’t have a fight with me in the hallway... Please, I am not going to do anything. I swear on my children."

He continued: "Please come in. On everything, I am a famous guy.”

That’s when Gutierrez steers the conversation to the alleged assault.

“Why yesterday you touch my breast?”

“Oh, please. I am sorry. Just come in. I am used to that. Just come in,” responded Weinstein.

“You’re used to that?”

“Yes, come in.”

A case against Weinstein was never filed, and shortly after the encounter, negative articles about Gutierrez began appearing in the gossip pages, according to The New Yorker.

Weinstein was fired from the Weinstein Company Sunday as the company attempts to cope with the scandal amid reports that the company may not be able to recover. A spokesperson for Weinstein told The New Yorker his encounters with the women were consensual.

“Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein," the spokesperson said. "Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”

Fear of reprisal is the reason many actresses said they didn’t go public before now.

Rosanna Arquette said that Weinstein exposed himself to her at a meeting in his Beverly Hills hotel room, telling her he’d made actresses and models who slept with him famous. Her career suffered after she rejected him, she believes.

“He made things very difficult for me for years,” she told The New Yorker.

“He’s going to be working very hard to track people down and silence people,” she explained. “To hurt people. That’s what he does.”

Gwyneth Paltrow, who won an Academy Award working with Weinstein, said he sexually harassed her as a young actress.

“I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified,” she told the New York Times. She rejected him and had her then-boyfriend, Brad Pitt, intervene with Weinstein.

“I thought he was going to fire me,” she said.

Other women say they couldn’t fight Weinstein off. Three women told The New Yorker he raped him. Actress Lucia Evans said he forced her to perform oral sex at a meeting in his Tribeca office when she was a college student in 2004.

“He forced me to perform oral sex on him, “ she told the magazine. “I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t.' I tried to get away, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough. I didn’t want to kick him or fight him.

“He’s a big guy. He overpowered me... I just sort of gave up. That’s the most horrible part of it, and that’s why he’s been able to do this for so long to so many women: People give up, and then they feel like it’s their fault.”

French actress Emma de Caunes describes Weinstein as a hunter. She met him at the Cannes Film Festival in 2010.

At a meeting in his hotel, he took a shower and then came into the room naked and demanding sex, she said.

“I was very petrified, but I didn’t want to show him that I was petrified, because I could feel that the more I was freaking out, the more he was excited,” she told The New Yorker. “It was like a hunter with a wild animal. The fear turns him on.”

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• Harvey Weinstein Fired As Sexual Harassment Allegations Pile

Watch: Jenkins On Weinstein Allegations: 'You Can't Treat People Like That, It's Horrible'

Photo: Harvey Weinstein arrives at the Oscars in Los Angeles. Weinstein is taking a leave of absence from his own company after The New York Times released a report alleging decades of sexual harassment against women, including employees and actress Ashley Judd. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)