After first giving testimony, Ronan Farrow says he is expanding his Harvey Weinstein reporting on powerful individuals
In his report on Harvey Weinstein’s alleged abuse of a 14-year-old model, Ronan Farrow cited at least two other unnamed women who said they were also abused by the film producer, including a 22-year-old who later came forward to allege that she was Weinstein’s “personal masseuse” and sexually assaulted by Weinstein after a “high-end massage session” at his home.
Now another one of the alleged victims has responded: she told the New Yorker that she was originally informed by Weinstein’s wife, Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman, that they “wanted me to keep quiet and ‘live with the consequences’”.
“The public insinuation that Georgina and Weinstein’s behavior with me was consensual is false,” said the woman, who was given the pseudonym “Victim 1” in the New Yorker article.
Weinstein on Friday denied “the allegation that I assaulted any women, ever” and said he “vehemently denies all allegations of non-consensual sex”. Weinstein’s lawyers, James and Ben Brafman, issued a statement to the New Yorker on Friday saying their client “never knowingly had sex with anyone under the age of eighteen”.
But Weinstein’s responses have not stopped others from speaking out. The Guardian has received a statement from another man who says he was pushed into sex with Weinstein after being “groomed” by the producer:
I remember asking Harvey Weinstein what this was about. I was 27 and I was trying to decide whether or not I should have children. It was a private matter but I would ask him privately how I could continue to have a career and not have children. Harvey wanted to have sex with me but I started my career when I was 18 and I had just gotten out of college. I was hesitant about what happened but he kept digging. Eventually he started pressuring me. I told him that I’d rather have a girlfriend. He was pissed and told me that I should not have made that decision. He insisted that I was his “babe” and I could have kids with him. I learned a few months later that he was pressuring other women around me about having sex with him.
A third accuser said she was “hired” by Weinstein to walk around the city naked:
For what it’s worth, his preferred method of touching was to approach me, always to say, “Aren’t you a great girl, aren’t you the girl you always say you are?”
Asked if he knew why he was “hired”, Farrow said: “I knew something special was happening, that you really needed to be there.”
Meanwhile, Farrow writes, two other women have contacted his reporting partner Jane Mayer in response to the case of Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had sex with Donald Trump in 2006.
Woman accuses Weinstein of urging women to perform oral sex on him Read more
Daniels accused Trump of paying her hush money, which Trump denied, but during this time Farrow and Mayer were reporting in the New Yorker on an investigation by the Los Angeles Times detailing a series of accusations against Harvey Weinstein.
“These newly surfaced allegations [against Weinstein] confirm our deep concerns from the start that powerful men with security services, lawyers, or other entanglements both within and outside of the United States conspired to silence women,” the editors of the New Yorker said in a statement.
“We fully support these women’s civil claims and hope that their stories will help women everywhere who have experienced sexual abuse or harassment,” they added.