‘I was terribly naive,’ Weinstein’s ex-wife says
Georgina Chapman gets up to $20M in divorce settlement from producer
Harvey Weinstein’s estranged wife broke her silence over her soon-to-be ex-husband — admitting she was “terribly naive” about the sexual misconduct allegations against him.
“I have moments of rage, I have moments of confusion, I have moments of disbelief!” Georgina Chapman told Vogue in an interview published Thursday.
The 42-year-old fashion designer said she worries most about the couple’s two children — and what people are going to tell them about their dad. “And I have moments when I just cry for my children,” she said. “What are their lives going to be?” Chapman explained she’s tried to keep out of the public eye since last fall out of respect for the women who accused Weinstein of misconduct, including actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan. She and Weinstein reached a $15-million to $20-million agreement to end their10-year marriage, in which she’ll receive custody of their children, earlier this year.
It took two days for Chapman to absorb the one-two punch of articles by the New York Times and then the New Yorker, which detailed allegations her husband blacklisted actresses who rebuffed his advances. “My head was spinning,” Chapman said to Vogue, adding that she dropped 10 pounds over five days. “And it was difficult because the first article was about a time long before I’d ever met him, so there was a minute where I couldn’t make an informed decision.”
Chapman had to take her kids out of the situation, however, once she “realized that this wasn’t an isolated incident.”
The British-born dress designer struck up an alliance with Huma Abedin, the estranged wife of disgraced politician Anthony Weiner.
The pair became friends last summer months before the reports about her husband, but strengthened their relationship in the wake of the scandal.
“This particular club, ironically, it’s not such a small one: women who have had to endure it in such a public way, women like Georgina and me,” Abedin told Vogue. “People don’t feel sorry for us; you don’t get that empathy.” When Chapman was asked if she ever wondered if her husband was philandering, she said: “Absolutely not. Never.
“And I’ve never been one of those people who obsesses about where someone is,” she told the magazine.
Still, she decided to shut herself in after the allegations surfaced in October 2017 because she didn’t think it would be “respectful to go out.”
“I thought, ‘Who am I to be parading around with all of this going on?’ It’s still so very, very raw,” she told Vogue. “I was walking up the stairs the other day and I stopped; it was like all the air had been punched out of my lungs.”
Chapman also decided not to offer any dresses made by the Marchesa brand she co-owns to actresses, believing no one wanted to buy her clothing.
“We didn’t feel it was appropriate given the situation,” Chapman told the magazine in February from the couple’s recently sold West Village townhouse. “All the women who have been hurt deserve dignity and respect, so I want to give it the time it deserves. It’s a time for mourning, really.”
But actress Scarlett Johansson became the first big actress to sport a Marchesa dress earlier this week, wearing one to the Met Gala in Manhattan.
“I wore Marchesa because their clothes make women feel confident and beautiful, and it is my pleasure to support a brand created by two incredibly talented and important female designers,” Johansson said.