Actress Meryl Streep lashed out at Melania Trump and Ivanka Trump in a New York Times interview published Wednesday, accusing the first lady and White House senior advisor of remaining silent about sexual misconduct.
Streep, who sat down with the Times alongside actor Tom Hanks to promote their new Steven Spielberg-directed Pentagon Papers drama The Post, was asked to address why it took her several days to respond to the initial New York Times exposé about how Harvey Weinstein allegedly committed decades of sexual harassment and reached financial settlements with at least eight different women.
“I don’t want to hear about the silence of me,” Streep said, deflecting away from the criticism she’s faced. “I want to hear about the silence of Melania Trump. I want to hear from her. She has so much that’s valuable to say. And so does Ivanka. I want her to speak now.”
“I don’t have a Twitter thing or — handle, whatever. And I don’t have Facebook. I really had to think,” Streep said of the allegations against Weinstein, which were first reported on October 5. “Because it really underlined my own sense of cluelessness, and also how evil, deeply evil, and duplicitous, a person [Weinstein] was, yet such a champion of really great work.”
It took Streep four days to issue a statement about the disgraced movie producer, who she once called “God,” telling the Huffington Post “The disgraceful news about Harvey Weinstein has appalled those of us whose work he championed, and those whose good and worthy causes he supported.”
The actress has come under intense fire for her own perceived silence, as large posters popped up all over Los Angeles last month showing Streep alongside Weinstein with the words “#SheKnew” covering her eyes.
Actress Rose McGowan, a Weinstein accuser who also settled with the producer over assault allegations, ripped Streep and accused her of “happily” working with Weinstein for years while remaining silent about his sexual misconduct.
Streep, however, maintains that with “so many rumors” swirling around it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.
“You make movies. You think you know everything about everybody. So much gossip. You don’t know anything. People are so inscrutable on a certain level. And it’s a shock. Some of my favorite people have been brought down by this, and he’s not one of them,” she said.
Indeed, Ivanka Trump said “there’s a special place in hell” for people who prey on children — a response to allegations against Republican Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore.
In an October 16 interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Melania Trump said, “every assault should be taken care of in a court of law, and to accuse — no matter who it is, a man or a woman — without evidence, it’s damaging and it’s unfair.”
Streep has been a constant critic of President Donald Trump, infamously using her Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award acceptance speech at the Golden Globes last year to urge the mainstream media and Hollywood to stand up to Trump, “to hold power to account, to call to the carpet for every outrage.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson