A New Yorker report has added three allegations of nonconsensual sex to last week’s allegations of Harvey Weinstein’s decades-long history of sexually harassing women and reaching multiple secret settlements. In a story reported by Ronan Farrow, 13 women told The New Yorker that the former Weinstein Company boss sexually harassed or assaulted them, between the 1990s and 2015. Three women said that Weinstein raped them, and four said they experienced unwanted touching that could be classified as an assault. Four actresses — including Mira Sorvino and Rosanna Arquette — said they felt that after they rebuffed Weinstein’s advances or complained about him that their careers suffered because of it. Sixteen former and current Weinstein employees said Weinstein’s behavior was well known within the Weinstein Company and Miramax, recounting a “culture of complicity at Weinstein’s places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way.â€
Italian actress Asia Argento said she was invited to a party thrown by Weinstein in 1997. When she arrived to the hotel for the party, a producer took her to Weinstein’s hotel room where she says Weinstein performed oral sex on her. (Argento told The New Yorker she later felt “obliged†to submit to his advances, and that they later had a friendship over the following five years with multiple consensual sexual encounters.) Another woman, Lucia Stoller, told The New Yorker that in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury, she met with Weinstein and a female casting executive during the day at his Tribeca offices. Stoller said Weinstein dismissed the exec and talked to her about a few scripts before assaulting her. “He forced me to perform oral sex on him. I said, over and over, ‘I don’t want to do this, stop, don’t,’†she told The New Yorker. “He’s a big guy. He overpowered me.â€
Sorvino, Arquette, and other women describe identical harassment: The women agreed to meet with Weinstein to discuss upcoming roles or their career, and their meeting was then moved to his personal hotel room where he asked them to massage him or watch him shower. The women say Weinstein bragged about other young models or actresses who submitted to him, and that they didn’t speak out earlier because they were afraid of his professional wrath. Female executives said they were often asked to join the beginning of these meetings to make the younger women feel comfortable, and then were asked to leave. Sorvino said she is friends with Harvey Weinstein’s brother and business partner Bob, but never told him about the harassment. Current and former Weinstein employees said that there was a “culture of silence about sexual assault inside Miramax and the Weinstein Company.â€
In a statement to The New Yorker, Sallie Hofmeister, a spokesperson for Weinstein, said: “Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr. Weinstein. Mr. Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances. Mr. Weinstein obviously can’t speak to anonymous allegations, but with respect to any women who have made allegations on the record, Mr. Weinstein believes that all of these relationships were consensual. Mr. Weinstein has begun counseling, has listened to the community and is pursuing a better path. Mr. Weinstein is hoping that, if he makes enough progress, he will be given a second chance.â€