Arguably Hollywood's most powerful actress has broken her silence.

Meryl Streep, one of the greatest female Hollywood actors of all time, has spoken out against former producer Harvey Weinstein following reports that he sexually harassed a number of women in the business. Streep issued a statement directly to , in which she denied any previous knowledge of Weinstein's actions and condemned him completely after his sacking from The Weinstein Company. Her statement reads: Last week, Weinstein was accused of a series of sexual harassments and assaults by a number of women over a number of decades. The majority of the accounts can be found . In the days following the story breaking, Harvey had taken a leave of absence from the production company, but today it was officially announced by The Weinstein Company that he was being fired from the company outright, "in light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days." Harvey and his brother Bob had been co-founders of Miramax back in 1979, and continued to run the company after the acquisition by Disney in 1993. Then in 2005, the brothers sold their share of the company to Disney - who then sold on Miramax elsewhere - and together they set up The Weinstein Company.