WHINE STEIN
Harvey tells Post: I have been great for women
“I want this city to recognize who I was instead of what I’ve become,” Harvey Weinstein told The Post in an exclusive interview in his hospital room after undergoing back surgery.
The disgraced megaproducer, who goes on trial next month for sexual assault — and who has been accused by more than 80 women of everything from harassment to rape — insisted no one in Hollywood has done more to boost the careers of women.
“I feel like the forgotten ma n ,” he complained bitterly.
More than 80 women have accused him of sexual assault or harassment, but for Harvey Weinstein, it’s still all about him.
The alleged serial sex predator and disgraced Hollywood producer whined to The Post in an exclusive interview that he should be remembered for doing more professionally for women than anyone in history — rather than for the slew of sickening allegations against him.
The fallen Tinseltown kingmaker appeared so clueless that he even boasted about a lucrative contract he once gave actress Gwyneth Paltrow — one of his alleged victims.
“I feel like the forgotten man,’’ the 67-year-old alleged rapist griped last week.
“I made more movies directed by women and about women than any filmmaker, and I’m talking about 30 years ago. I’m not talking about now, when it’s vogue. I did it first! I pioneered it!
“It all got eviscerated because of what happened,’’ Weinstein added bitterly. “My work has been forgotten.’’
Weinstein talked to The Post while recuperating at New YorkPresbyterian/ We ill Cornell Medical Center on Friday, a day after three-hour spinal surgery to remove three bone plates compressing his vertebrae. He said he sustained the back injury in an Aug. 17 car accident.
While refusing to speak about any of the allegations against him, Weinstein said he agreed to the interview, his first in more than a year, to prove that he hasn’t been exaggerating his ailments.
He relied heavily on a walker at a Manhattan court appearance last week, although his condition didn’t stop him from recently going out on the town at night and shopping without the walker. He told The Post that his back ailment had seriously deteriorated.
Sitting on a couch beside floorto-ceiling hospital windows that framed the city’s skyline, Weinstein described reports that he is overblowing his physical condition as fake news, insisting, “This was a major operation.
“I want this city to recognize who I was instead of what I’ve become,” he added, wearing a pair of loose blue jeans and a black T-shirt as a tube drained blood from his bandaged incision into a container hung from his walker.
The fallen mogul was in an elite wing of the hospital that features marble bathrooms, Italian linens and original framed artwork, all designed to look like a plush hotel. A private chef and concierge cater to patients, while visitors can sip cucumber-infused water.
Weinstein, who looked pallid and weary, goes on trial for sexual assault Jan. 6 in Manhattan Supreme Court.
He is accused of raping a longtime lover, who has not been publicly identified, in 2013, as well as forcibly performing oral sex on production assistant Mimi Haleyi in 2006. He is charged with five counts of predatory sexual assault, criminal sex act and rape in the cases and faces up to life in prison if convicted.
The producer and his bankrupt film studio, The Weinstein Co., last week reportedly reached a tentative $25 million civil settlement with more than 30 accusers. Weinstein refused to discuss the reputed deal.
One of the women who has alleged harassment but is not part of the civil settlement is Paltrow, who won an Oscar for Miramax’s 1999 film “Shakespeare in Love.” She has said Weinstein, then at the helm of Miramax, lured her to his hotel room under the guise of a business meeting and tried to massage her in 1994, when she was 22.
“Gwyneth Paltrow in 2003 got $10 million to make a movie called ‘View from the Top,’ ” Weinstein said, referring to the romantic comedy and his decision to pay the star the hefty sum.
“She was the highest-paid female actor in an independent film. Higher paid than all the men,” he crowed.
The movie ended up widely panned, even by Paltrow.
Weinstein also touted what he called his companies’ leadership in pay equity for women and his charity work.
He recalled that in the early 90s,
Madonna sent him to see “Paris is Burning,” a documentary about the city’s drag-ball culture that has become a cult classic.
“I understood the celebratory nature of the film and bought the distribution rights,” he said.
“The same thing is true for ‘Transamerica’ [for] which Felicity Huffman got an Academy Award,” he added.
The Weinstein Co. released “Transamerica” in 2005, although Huffman didn’t win the Oscar, which went to Reese Witherspoon.
He also rattled off other movies with social-justice agendas that Miramax and The Weinstein Co.
produced or distributed.
“This was a company that took social issues and tackled them,” he said.
It wasn’t just the movie industry where Weinstein insisted he flexed his humanitarian muscle.
After 9/11, he helped produce a charity concert that raised $100 million for first responders through the Robin Hood Foundation, he said. He resigned from the foundation’s board in 2017 after the misconduct allegations surfaced.
Weinstein remained the characteristic bully throughout the interview with The Post, threatening to terminate the sit-down each time a question that he didn’t like was posed.
When asked if he felt that the torrent of disturbing allegations against him had canceled out his charitable deeds and perhaps left him in the karmic red, he snapped, “I’ll move on.”
Weinstein did challenge recent assertions by Manhattan prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon that he tampered with his ankle monitor to hide his whereabouts.
“I think they wanted to embarrass me,” he claimed.
The monitor includes a slim ankle bracelet and a signaling component the size of a cellphone.
The device was docked in a black box by his hospital bed during the interview.
“I made a success out of myself. I had no money, and I built quite an empire with Miramax and decided to give back,” Weinstein said, referring to his modest upbringing in Flushing, Queens, and his charity work.
“If you remember who I was then, you might want to question some of this.”
Weinstein — who has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex — was discharged from the hospital Sunday morning.