‘He ran company like a honeypot for girls’

HARVEY Weinstein was able to spend decades allegedly abusing women because of a ‘ culture of silence’ and complicity at his companies, it was alleged yesterday.

Executives of Miramax and The Weinstein Company in New York and London were reportedly so terrified of the producer that they kept their mouths shut.

A report in the New Yorker claimed female staff were used as honeypots to get actresses alone with Weinstein.

The female staff member would initially join them but Weinstein would dismiss her soon after so he was alone with his target, it is alleged.

Executives yesterday told the New Yorker of their guilt and shame at not having spoken out sooner.

An unnamed female executive told the New Yorker: ‘There was a large volume of these meetings that Harvey would have with aspiring actresses and models, He would have them late at night, usually at hotel bars or in hotel rooms. And, in order to make these women feel more comfortable, he would ask a female executive or assistant to start those meetings with him.’

In one meeting, a female staff member said Weinstein turned to her and told her to say ‘how good a boyfriend I am’.

The same staff member was asked to keep track of the women and file them under the same label in her phone – ‘FOH’, meaning ‘Friend of Harvey’.

Former staff told the New Yorker they would ‘feel terrible’ knowing what was about to happen to the women, but felt they were powerless to do anything.

They said that many of the victims seemed ‘not aware of the nature of those meetings’ and ‘were definitely scared’.

Weinstein once whispered to himself after one of his rages: ‘There are things I’ve done that nobody knows’. A former executive who was aware of two legal settlements in London said to Ronan Farrow, who wrote the piece in the New Yorker: ‘I think a lot of us had thought – and hoped – over the years that it would come out sooner.

‘But I think now is the right time, in this current climate, for the truth.’

The New Yorker said that Weinstein contacted its sources and tried to persuade them to stop. He has also threatened to sue several media outlets.

Executives at The Weinstein Company and former staff are speaking out in breach of confidentiality agreements even though it may cost them a fortune in legal fees if Weinstein sues them.

One current female executive said: ‘The more of us that can confirm or validate for these women if this did happen, I think it’s really important for their justice to do that. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have stopped it – and this is my way of doing that now.’