Yesterday, Björk wrote about her experience with sexual harassment, which is widely believed to be at the hands of director Lars von Trier, for several reasons: She said it was a Danish director she was talking about, the only film Björk has starred in von Trier’s Dancer In The Dark, and von Trier publicly denied the allegations yesterday.
Now, Björk has expanded on her original Facebook post with a new one from this morning, in which she details a handful of incidents that she thinks “count as sexual harassment.” She describes some unsettling scenarios, like when the director “stroked me sometimes for minutes against my wishes,” when he “exploded and broke a chair in front of everyone on set” after being told to stop touching her, and the time “he threatened to climb from his room’s balcony over to mine in the middle of the night with a clear sexual intention, while his wife was in the room next door.”
The singer said “it feels extremely difficult to come out with something of this nature into the public,” but that she feels that “it is the right time especially now when it could make a change.”
Read Björk’s full post below.
“in the spirit of #metoo i would like to lend women around the world a hand with a more detailed description of my experience with a danish director . it feels extremely difficult to come out with something of this nature into the public , especially when immediately ridiculed by offenders . i fully sympathise with everyone who hesitates , even for years . but i feel it is the right time especially now when it could make a change . here comes a list of the encounters that i think count as sexual harassment :
1 after each take the director ran up to me and wrapped his arms around me for a long time in front of all crew or alone and stroked me sometimes for minutes against my wishes
2 when after 2 months of this i said he had to stop the touching , he exploded and broke a chair in front of everyone on set . like someone who has always been allowed to fondle his actresses . then we all got sent home .
3 during the whole filming process there were constant awkward paralysing unwanted whispered sexual offers from him with graphic descriptions , sometimes with his wife standing next to us .
4 while filming in sweden , he threatened to climb from his room´s balcony over to mine in the middle of the night with a clear sexual intention , while his wife was in the room next door . i escaped to my friends room . this was what finally woke me up to the severity of all this and made me stand my ground
5 fabricated stories in the press about me being difficult by his producer . this matches beautifully the weinstein methods and bullying . i have never eaten a shirt . not sure that is even possible .
6 i didnt comply or agree on being sexually harassed . that was then portrayed as me being difficult . if being difficult is standing up to being treated like that , i´ll own it .
hope
let´s break this curse
warmth
björk”
