By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) --Barbra Streisand said she's never suffered sexual harassment but has felt abused by the media.
During a tribute to Streisand's decades of TV music specials and other programs, producer and long-time admirer Ryan Murphy queried her about her career, the #MeToo movement and her aversion to interviews.
"Never," she replied when asked if she had been sexually mistreated. "I wasn't like those pretty girls with those nice little noses. Maybe that's why."
She acknowledged the power of protests against gender inequality sweeping through Hollywood and society.
"We're in a strange time now in terms of men and women and the pendulum swinging this way and that way, and it's going to have to come to the center," Streisand said during Friday's Paley Center for Media event held at a packed theater.
Her reluctance to talk to news outlets is based on years of what she called inaccurate reporting, including one story that claimed she has an "awards room" at home dedicated to her Oscars, Emmys and other trophies. But it was the late TV journalist Mike Wallace who came in for the sharpest criticism.
Streisand said that when she was a young star (and before Wallace joined "60 Minutes"), he asked her hurtful questions during a TV interview and she called him afterward to complain. But on a subsequent show, Wallace told viewers who'd objected to his treatment of Streisand that she "loved" the interview, according to the star.
"I thought, I don't know what date rape is, it's terrible … but it was such a violation," she said. "Why lie?"
Streisand said she demands control in her work but only in service to her art that's included directing, acting and producing TV movies, among them 1995's "Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story," about anti-gay discrimination in the military.
Murphy ("Glee," ''American Horror Story"), who admitted to being nervous as he began his one-on-one conversation with the star of "Funny Girl" and award-winning TV specials dating back to 1966's "Color Me Barbra," said he owed his career to her.
"People talk about Barbra as the greatest female star. I say, no, that's not enough," Murphy said, calling her a groundbreaker for those who don't fit the mold. "She was a touchstone, a beacon I followed my entire life.
The tribute, which kicked off the 35th annual PaleyFest LA television festival at the Dolby Theatre, was capped by the presentation to Streisand of the 2018 PaleyFest Icon award.
Streisand is a "truly magical artist," Maureen J. Reidy, Paley Center president and CEO, said of her work as a singer, actress, director and producer.
Streisand also is known for her political activism on behalf of Democratic candidates and issues including gay rights.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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