Jennifer Esposito says 'Harvey Weinstein–esque' producer tried to kill her career

The "Blue Bloods" and "Spin City" alum says a "brutal" producer told others not to hire her and that she was a drug addict.

Jennifer Esposito had just begun to act professionally when she ran into "a Harvey Weinstein–esque type person" who attempted to end her career, she says on the latest episode of the She Pivots podcast.

"He fired me for no reason," Esposito said of a "notorious, brutal" producer she did not name. "He wanted someone else and he got her."

Worse, she said, he attempted to keep her from working at all.

"But then, like, anybody that called was like, 'Hey, I want to hire her.' He was like, 'Don't hire her,'" Esposito said. "He said I was a drug addict, locked myself in the trailer. Never happened. I don't do drugs. Never did. If you do, great. It's just not me."

"He literally had the power, and he used it to completely end a young girl's career at 26 years old," she said.

She described it as "a really, really painful time, because he literally — that kid who was waiting tables, and a kid who had this dream since she was a baby — he literally, he took it, because he could, and killed it."

Kevin Mazur/Getty Jennifer Esposito in 2023

Esposito turned 26 in 1999, the year that saw her appear in movies Summer of Sam and The Bachelor and that she departed TV comedy series Spin City, after costarring on it for two seasons. She went on to appear in movies such as Don't Say a Word and Crash, and on TV's Samantha Who?, NCIS, and Blue Bloods.

But she said that her latest project — a movie called Fresh Kills, which she wrote, directed, and stars in — is a result of what happened in that situation.

"I know for a fact that if that didn't happen with that producer and my road had been easier, I would have never written and directed what I just did," Esposito said. "Because, as I've said to a few people that know me well, Fresh Kills, the film was for the 26-year-old kid who got slaughtered."

Fresh Kills, about women in a late-'80s Staten Island–based organized crime family, costars Emily Bader, Odessa A'zion, Annabella Sciorra, and Domenick Lombardozzi and is now in theaters.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.