Jennifer Esposito claimed a Harvey Weinstein-style producer once tried to ‘completely end’ her career when she was 26 years old.
‘He literally had the power and used it to completely end a young girl’s career at 26 years old. This was a notorious, brutal producer – a Harvey Weinstein-esque type of person,’ the 55-year-old Blue Bloods alum told Em Suss’ podcast She Pivots last week.
‘So he fired me for no reason. He wanted someone else and he got her. But then, like, anybody that called and was like, “Hey, I want to hire her.” He was like, “Don’t hire her.” [He] said I was a drug addict. Locked myself in the trailer. [That] never happened. I don’t do drugs. Never did.
‘If you do, great, it’s just not me. And that was a really, really painful time because he, literally, that kid who was waiting tables and that kid who had this dream since she was a baby, he literally took it because he could and killed it.’
Jennifer was 26 in 1999 – the same year she starred in Spike Lee’s crime thriller Summer of Sam, Lane Janger’s comedy Just One Time, and Gary Sinyor’s rom-com The Bachelor.
Esposito claimed the unnamed producer’s blacklisting lead to her being dropped by her agent and manager, and she didn’t score new representation for two and a half years.
The native New Yorker mortgaged her own home in order to finance her critically-acclaimed feature directorial debut Fresh Kills, which hit limited US theaters last Friday.
‘I know for a fact that if that didn’t happen with that producer, and my road was easier, I would have never wrote and directed what I just did,’ Jennifer said.
‘Because, as I’ve said, to a few people that know me well, Fresh Kills my film was for the 26-year-old kid who got slaughtered.’
Esposito continued: ‘It was a hard time. But it was also a beautiful time. Because if I wasn’t that kid, I would have never been this woman. And I’m very proud of who I am and very proud of what I’ve done. I gave her her career back in the way that she could do it. Not the way someone else told me I could do it. I needed to right the wrong again.’
The Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens actress wrote, produced, directed, and starred as wife-mother Francine Larusso in the eighties Staten Island-set feminist mafia drama alongside Annabella Sciorra, Emily Bader, Odessa A’zion, and Domenick Lombardozzi.
Jennifer also has two upcoming acting projects – Todd Turner’s refugee drama The December Cross alongside Judd Hirsch and Kenny Beaumont’s middle school comedy F Plus alongside six-time UFC champion Randy Couture.
On the personal front, Esposito wed her third husband – fitness trainer Jesper Vesterstrøm – in 2020 following her 2016 divorce from British model Louis Dowler after two years of marriage and her 2007 divorce from 12-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper after just five months of wedded bliss.