Goldie Hawn Recalls Standing Up To Harvey Weinstein For Undermining Her Role In ‘Chicago’

Bye Harvey Weinsteinreputation couldn’t get worse Goldie Hawn asks to be different.

The Oscar-winning actress told Variety on Wednesday that she was set to produce and star in a film adaptation of the musical Chicago when she was in her 40s. However, Weinstein, the former head of Miramax Films, commissioned a new script in which her character was 23.

“Harvey actually undermined me and Madonna.” Hawn told Variety. “I really don’t know how she felt about it. You know, she just went with the flow.”

Hawn said she was cast as Velma Kelly in a late 1980s project while madonna – who has already risen to world fame with “like a virgin– was supposed to play the role of Roxy Hart with her. When Weinstein stepped in, Hawn ran into the now-disgraced movie mogul.

“Don’t joke with me,” she told him. “Because I know what you’re doing. We made a deal.”

However, Hawn remained on the sidelines, and Weinstein’s rewrite lay for decades. Finally, when his studio turned the project into an Oscar-winning film in 2002, Catherine Zeta-Jones won Best Supporting Actress for the same role that Hawn had worked on.

Although Hawn was apparently interested in the project for more than just praise (and has already received Oscar for Best Supporting Actress (Cactus Flower) in 1970) she demanded that Weinstein pay her what they had agreed for her work, and she won nonetheless.

“You go up against a bully and sometimes you win,” Hawn told Variety about getting Weinstein to pay her compensation. “After that, I told him: “You know what is the most pleasant thing about you paying me? Not money. You restored my faith in dignity and ethics.” Little do I know.”

Bye rumors of sexual abuse surrounded him for decades, Weinstein was formally convicted in 2020 for criminal sexual intercourse and rape in the third degree and sentenced to 23 years in prison. He was convicted at second trial in February and, in fact, will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“He’s finally living out his karma,” Hawn told Variety.

Help is needed? Visit RAINN’s National Online Sexual Assault Hotline or Website of the National Resource Center for Sexual Assault.