Revelations of Harvey Weinstein‘s alleged sexual harassment and assault has prompted conversations about workplace harassment the world over – because we know damn well that this misconduct isn’t confined to Hollywood.
Now, 56-year-old actor George Clooney told Extra his wife Amal, a successful human rights lawyer, has faced sexual harassment during her career.
“My wife is a very smart, very together, very accomplished human rights lawyer and she said, ‘There have been times in my life, in the law community I had to tell someone to knock it off’, so it happens everywhere,” he said.
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While Clooney didn’t specify whether his wife, 39, was the victim of harassment, or a bystander who spoke up, her act of calling out the behaviour is something her husband wants all women to feel safe to do.
“There has to be some good that comes out of all of this and the good is going to have to be that women feel safe to speak up, that they are believed and hopefully be enough that it scares any man who would behave like that from doing it,” he said of the Weinstein scandal.
“Let’s stop having meetings in hotel rooms, you can have it in the restaurant downstairs.
“This wasn’t just guys hitting on girls, this is assault… If we don’t address this and really go after Harvey, it will come back.”