Does Judi Dench really have Harvey Weinstein’s name tattooed on her bum?
At first, you might be thinking, ‘No, that’s ridiculous, Dame Judi Dench would never dream of getting the name of one of Hollywood’s most vile and reprehensible figures permanently etched on her rear end’, but it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.
For one thing, the Academy Award-winning legend of stage and screen has a famously risque sense of humour, whether she’s simulating sex to make her co-stars laugh so hard they piss themselves mid-performance, asking complete strangers if they fancy a shag, or embroidering X-rated messages for her colleagues to display proudly in their homes.
There’s also the fact that before his fall from grace and eventual incarceration, Dench was one of Harvey Weinstein’s biggest champions. He was so blown away by her performance in an early cut of Mrs Brown, her first-ever starring role in a movie, that he acquired the distribution rights, and five of her first six Oscar nominations, including her win for Shakespeare in Love, came in Miramax-produced pictures.
“It is thanks to him that I’ve got a film career,” she once said, but it should be noted that as soon as the widespread allegations against Weinstein became public, she issued a statement to say she was “completely unaware of these offenses which are, of course, horrifying and I offer my sympathy to those who have suffered, and wholehearted support to those who have spoken out.”
However, the elephant in the room, or on the arse, in this case, was Dench letting slip that she’d gotten an arrow with a heart through it, saying ‘JD loves HW’ inked on her behind. “I’m so glad that that’s universal news, I’m really glad,” she told The Hollywood Reporter in 2014. “I once said to him, ‘I have your name tattooed on my bum’. He laughed and was, well, quite embarrassed, actually.”
Doing what any decorated performer would do, Dench even mooned him during the middle of a business lunch to prove that she was telling the truth: “I brought it up at lunch and said, ‘You know, I do have it on my bum’, and then I actually got up and showed him! I’ve never seen a man more embarrassed, and I’ve never let him forget it.”
Thankfully, even though she can easily afford laser removal, Dench didn’t really get the disgraced producer’s initials tatted on her tush. Instead, she told him about the tattoo as a joke, and when it was time to either put up or shut up, she had her makeup artist place a temporary ode to Weinstein on her arse, which she then whipped out in front of him.
She does have a tattoo, though, with Dench celebrating her 81st birthday by going under the needle for the first time and having ‘Cape Diem’ inscribed on her wrist. That’s a lot better than trying to explain why she had his initials in a place where not many people would ever be able to see, but mercifully, it was all a practical joke from the mischievous icon.
