Ex- assistant says she tried to stop Weinstein in 1998
LONDON — Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant says she tried to stop him abusing women two decades ago, making him sign a legal agreement that required him to seek therapy and mend his ways.
Zelda Perkins quit Weinstein’s film company in 1998, along with a colleague who accused themovie mogul of trying to rape her.
As part of a settlement, Perkins signed a non- disclosure agreement. It kept her silent, but also committed Weinstein to attend therapy for three years. And it required the company to spill the beans to its then- owner, the Walt Disney Co., or to fire Weinstein if he made any more payouts over alleged wrongdoing.
Perkins said her hope was to “create protection for people in the future.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Perkins chose the therapist Weinstein was to consult. She doesn’t know whether he ever went to the sessions.
“I have no idea if any of the obligations were upheld,” Perkins told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
She said that a year after she left the company she ran into Weinstein at the Cannes Film Festival, and “he told me that everything I had done was pointless.”
Perkins is due to testify Wednesday before the British Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee, which is investigating sexual harassment and the use of nondisclosure agreements, or NDAs. Conservative lawmaker Maria Miller, who chairs the committee, says there are concerns the gag orders might be used to “mask the scale of this problem.”
NDAs are common in the corporate world, but Perkins says they can be used to let perpetrators get away with wrongdoing while silencing their victims.