Winona Ryder Just Reflected On The Blatant Sexual Harassment And “Extremely Creepy” Behavior She Endured In Her Late 20s That Made Her Want To Quit Hollywood

By this point, Winona had already been acting for a couple of years, but her performance as Lydia in the instant classic really put her name on the map. 

Over the next decade, Winona became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, equally known for her impressive performances in movies such as Girl, Interrupted and Little Women as she was for her high-profile romances with other celebrities like Johnny Depp and Matt Damon.

Aside from two projects that had already been filmed prior to her arrest and were released in 2002, plus one uncredited movie appearance in 2004, Winona took a five-year break from our screens after the incident.

The show, which is currently filming its fifth and final season, premiered in 2016, with Winona playing Joyce Byers, whose son Will goes missing in Season 1.

The beloved actor has also reprised the role that started it all in the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, where rising star Jenna Ortega plays her daughter. 

While being shunned by such a big production company would have undoubtedly had a detrimental impact on her career, Winona thankfully escaped falling victim to Harvey in other ways. 

However, she still endured relentless sexual harassment from other men in the industry throughout her late 20s and early 30s. 

“I had a couple of difficult experiences with a couple of people who were just blatantly sexually harassing me,” she said. “And then it happened again in my thirties. It wasn’t an assault. But it was incredibly inappropriate. It was wild.”

Winona then acknowledged: “I was lucky because I was known, so it didn’t happen as much as maybe it would if I had been a struggling actor.”

Winona added that she only realized exactly how “fucked up” the incidents were when she told her young costar Jenna about them recently. 

The star said that she became somewhat accustomed to brushing off unwanted advances from men, explaining: “If someone was being inappropriate or drunkenly hitting on me it was like, ‘Ha ha!’ You kind of do that. ‘Ha ha!’ Inappropriate? I dealt with that. But touching me? It felt very invasive.”

And while she doesn’t want to name the men who were involved, or get into the specifics of what happened, she does believe that it “soured” how she felt about making movies during this time in her life. 

“All the great actors always told me that when it stops being amazing, you gotta get out. I really took that to heart,” she said.

In the profile, Winona said that she didn’t intend on stealing the clothes and was simply in a daze when she wandered out of the store with the items, and was “confused” when she was apprehended. 

Notably, the star was taking prescription painkillers for a broken arm at the time, and was struggling with her mental health.

She said: “It’s so funny, because there’s so much lore around that story, but it really couldn’t have been more of me thinking I’m going to my car to get something…”

In the moment, Winona thought that the situation would easily be resolved, with the star adding: “I just remember being told I was going to go to prison. I was like, ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’”

She admitted that she was mostly just embarrassed for her family after the arrest, and was ultimately sentenced to three years’ probation, fined, and ordered to carry out community service. 

Winona decided to relocate to San Francisco from Los Angeles at the time, and when she returned to Hollywood five years later, she was surprised by how much it had changed. 

Referencing the male-orientated comedies that defined this era, Winona added: “Actresses were being punished for not getting the joke, or not playing along. Everyone was trying to be the cool girl, sexualized but also one of the guys… I thought it was demeaning. I just remember feeling like, ‘Man, if this is the future, we’re fucked.’”

Despite working on some projects that she enjoyed during this time, Winona is said to have struggled to find good material, and then had to battle to get cast due to the notoriety the shoplifting scandal had given her. 

Show Me a Hero’s creator, David Simon, ended up casting her in the series despite concerns from other people involved in the production, and thankfully, his risk paid off. 

And when Stranger Things came along, Winona believes that the ‘80s and ‘90s nostalgia associated with her actually played a hand in her being cast, saying: “I’m not oblivious in any way about the reason they came to me for it. I know there is an element of nostalgia. I am aware.”