HARV’S PREY
H’wood big a sex harass sicko Judd, McGowan among victims he’s ‘hurt’
HARVEY WEINSTEIN made unwanted sexual advances on a cast of young Hollywood hopefuls, including actresses Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan, during his three decades as a pioneering movie mogul, according to a bombshell report.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Weinstein invited Judd to the Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel about 20 years ago for what she thought would be a breakfast meeting about her career.
Instead of joining the “Kiss the Girls” star in the restaurant, Weinstein, 65, had her sent to his suite, where he greeted her in a bathrobe and asked if he could give her a massage, she told the newspaper.
He then proposed she watch him shower, she told The Times.
“I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” Judd recalled. “It was all this bargaining, this coercive bargaining.”
Judd said she ordered the simplest thing on the menu — cereal — so it would arrive quickly and she could make her escape.
“How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein?” Judd recalled thinking.
Now an established A-lister and political activist, Judd, 49, said she felt compelled to finally speak out.
“Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly,” she said.
Weinstein has reached at least eight settlements with various women, The Times reported.
In a statement to the Daily News, Weinstein admitted he was “remorseful about the people I hurt.”
That didn’t stop his lawyer Charles Harder from threatening legal action.
“We are preparing the lawsuit now. All proceeds will be donated to women’s organizations,” Harder said in a statement to The News.
Harder claimed the Times’ story was “saturated with false and defamatory statements.”
The threat seemed at odds with Weinstein’s own words.
“I appreciate the way I’ve behaved with colleagues in the past has caused a lot of pain, and I sincerely apologize for it,” the independent film business titan said in his statement.
The married father of five said he identified with accused adulterer JAY-Z and quoted a supposed lyric from the Brooklyn rapper: “I’m not the man I thought I was and I better be that man for my children.” There’s no actual JAY-Z lyric using those words, but Weinstein went on. “The same is true for me,” he said. “This is a wakeup call.” The producer of “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love” said he was working with therapists and planned to take time off to “deal with this issue head on.” A longtime Democratic donor who employed former President Barack Obama’s older daughter Malia as an intern this year, Weinstein then touted his new scholarship program for women directors and said he plans to channel his “anger” into fighting the National Rifle Association. Weinstein didn’t name anyone specifically in his mea culpa. According to The Times, he doled out hush money to a young assistant in New York in 1990, McGowan in 1997, an assistant in London in 1998, Italian model Ambra Battilana in 2015 and Lauren O’Connor, a former pro-
duction executive at The Weinstein Company.
O’Connor reportedly wrote a searing 2015 memo that claimed Weinstein left a female assistant “crying and very distraught” after he allegedly badgered her into massaging his naked body at the Peninsula that year.
Battilana previously claimed Weinstein sexually assaulted her at his Tribeca office. She told police he asked if her breasts were real, touched them without permission and ran his hand up her skirt.
Cops had Battilana call Weinstein after the incident as they listened in. A source told The News he never denied touching her. Prosecutors, citing a lack of evidence, ultimately declined to file charges.
The Times said most of the women who reached settlements collected between $80,000 and $150,000.
Weinstein paid McGowan $100,000 after an incident in a hotel room during the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, the paper said. The payment “was not to be construed as an admission,” according to paperwork reviewed by The Times. McGowan did not respond to a request for comment Thursday, but the “Charmed” actress claimed in a series of Twitter posts last year that she had been raped by an unidentified studio boss. Using the hashtag #WhyWomenDontReport, McGowan said she stayed mum because she was concerned about her career. “A (female) criminal attorney said because I’d done a sex scene in a film I would never win against a studio head,” she tweeted on Oct. 13, 2016. “Because my ex sold our movie to my rapist for distribution,” she continued in a followup tweet. McGowan and Judd posted The Times’ story to their Twitter accounts Thursday. “Women fight on. And to the men out there, stand up. We need you as allies,” McGowan also tweeted Thursday. For his part, Weinstein said he hired women’s rights lawyer Lisa Bloom to counsel him. In a statement to The News, Bloom called Weinstein “an old dinosaur learning new ways.”
The lawyer most famous for representing women with claims against powerful men said she’s been advising Weinstein for a year as they’ve worked to turn her 2014 book about Florida shooting victim Trayvon Martin into a docuseries.
The six-part project is being produced by JAY-Z and the Weinstein Co.
“I have been blunt with Harvey, and he has listened to me,” Bloom said. “He needs to evolve to a higher standard.”
Weinstein’s long-suffering fashion designer wife, Georgina Chapman, meanwhile, spent Thursday showing her new line of wedding gowns in Manhattan.
Chapman (photo, left), who married the movie mogul in 2007, debuted her Marchesa Notte Bridal Fall 2018 line during the first full day of New York Bridal Fashion Week.