Claims mount as wife leaves
Weinstein faces rape allegations, more star complaints
HARVEY Weinstein has been accused of raping three women – as a string of stars also alleged he has harassed or assaulted them during decades of predatory behaviour.
It comes as the disgraced movie mogul’s fashion designer wife Georgina Chapman announced she was leaving him.
The scandal deepened dramatically as a comprehensive expose in The New Yorker claimed Weinstein routinely forced himself upon young female actors. Three women accused Weinstein of raping them, including the Italian actress and filmmaker Asia Argento.
“I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story – in my case, it’s 20 years old, some of them are older – has never come out.”
Some 13 women told The New Yorker he sexually harassed or assaulted them. And according to the article, he told one former colleague: “There are things I’ve done that nobody knows.”
It also emerged Weinstein was once the target of a police “sting” operation in which he appeared to harass a young female actor.
And in a separate bombshell claim published by The New York Times, Gwyneth Paltrow revealed Weinstein asked her for a massage in his hotel bedroom when she was 22.
The star said she rejected his advances and left immediately but feared he would harm her career as a result, adding: “I was a kid, I was signed up, I was petrified.”
She told her then-boyfriend Brad Pitt who confronted Weinstein at a movie premiere and told him to never touch her again.
And Angelina Jolie said she had a “bad experience” with Weinstein, 65, when she was young and never worked with him again. A string of others made similar claims.
Weinstein denies having non-consensual sex with anyone.
The New Yorker claims 16 of Weinstein’s colleagues knew about allegations but did nothing. He has since been fired by the The Weinstein Company board.
Yesterday Weinstein’s British wife Chapman said she was leaving him in the wake of the lurid allegations. “My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions,” Chapman, 41, said.
Weinstein and Chapman married in 2007 and have two children together.