Salma Hayek claims Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed and threatened to kill her

Salma Hayek has said that two prominent men in Hollywood were the reason she escaped being assaulted by Harvey Weinstein.

In a piece in the New York Times yesterday, the actress claimed that the film producer had sexually harassed her and threatened to kill her. Her friendships with George Clooney and director Quentin Tarantino, as well as with Harvey's then-wife Elizabeth Avellan and the director Robert Rodriguez, may have "saved me from being raped." The actress wrote yesterday that she was forced to refuse his advances repeatedly.

"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 sex. "I will kill you, don't think I can't," she says he once told her after she rejected him.

She also claimed that she had to take a sedative to "stop the crying" so she could film a sex scene with another woman for the movie Frida that he insisted on her doing.

"He would let me finish the film if I agreed to do a sex scene with another woman. And he demanded full-frontal nudity. He had been constantly asking for more skin, for more sex."

In a statement last night, the film producer said he 'didn't recall' pressuring the actress.]

"Mr Weinstein does not recall pressuring Salma to do a gratuitous sex scene with a female costar and he was not there for the filming," a spokeswoman for him said. "All of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma are not accurate and others who witnessed the events have a different account of what transpired."

Weinstein also said that the scene was necessary as the main character Frida Kahlo was bisexual. He did not address her claim that he threatened to kill her, though he did say that he "continues to support her work.