Salma Hayek: Penelope Cruz Was 'Really Angry At Me' for Not Sharing My Harvey Weinstein Story Sooner

Salma Hayek and Penelope Cruz attend the 2009 Vanity Fair Oscar party. (Photo: Jeff Vespa/VF/WireImage for Vanity Fair)

Penélope Cruz wishes her close friend Salma Hayek had confided in her about her experience with Harvey Weinstein during the making of 2002’s Frida.

Hayek, 51, spoke at length with good friend Ashley Judd, 49, for Town & Country about finally deciding to speak out about the disgraced movie producer, when she revealed Cruz’s feelings.

“Penelope was really angry at me, because I didn’t tell her what was going on while it was happening,” she said. “But, you know, I didn’t realize Harvey was doing it to other people, too, so I thought, ‘Why dump your stuff on someone and take away from their professional relationship with him?’ At that time Harvey was doing the best movies.”

While Judd was one of the first women to publicly go on record, it took Hayek longer to share her story because she was still coming to terms with it.

“It took me a couple of months in my head, because I had never told anyone. Just thinking about it weakened me emotionally,” Hayek said. “And if it affected me in such a way just to think about it, why would I say it out loud? The hard part was to tell my husband, because I had said, ‘Oh, Harvey was a bully,’ but I had never told him all of it.”

The actress also opened up about feeling ashamed for not taking part in the original New York Times story detailing sexual harassment accusations against Weinstein, despite Judd offering for her to stay anonymous. “The only reason I was able to finally do it was your loving hand. If it weren’t for you, this story wouldn’t have come out,” Hayek told Judd.

In December, Hayek wrote an emotional op-ed for the paper, recounting her alleged experiences with Weinstein through the course of the making of Frida, the Miramax-produced Frida Kahlo biopic. In the piece, she claimed that the now-disgraced mogul had once threatened to kill her when she refused his advances.

She also said Weinstein, 65, demanded the actress do a sex scene with another woman with full-frontal nudity, a request she said led to her having a “nervous breakdown” on set.

In a statement to PEOPLE, a spokesperson for Weinstein previously denied “all of the sexual allegations as portrayed by Salma” — though he did admit to “boorish behavior.”