Actress Ashley Judd filed a lawsuit against disgraced movie producer Harvey Weinstein, the New York Times is reporting, alleging that he spread lies about her around Hollywood in order to keep her from advancing her career after she rejected his sexual advances.
Her claim is backed by director Peter Jackson, who says he took Judd off a casting list for his blockbuster Lord of the Rings trilogy “as a direct result” of what he now thinks is “false information” given to him by Weinstein. This included claims by the powerful producer that Judd was a “nightmare” to work with and someone to be avoided “at all costs.”
Judd’s odds of winning her case may be slim, however. “It is rare for people to recover damages for smear campaigns—for instance, quietly labeling actresses as ‘difficult’ when they don’t acquiesce to powerful men—because of how complicated it can be to prove the action took place, let alone directly harmed someone’s career,” Brooks Barnes of the Times writes. “If successful, the lawsuit could clarify sexual harassment protections for those in nontraditional business relationships.”
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