Harvey Weinstein claims he was punched in the face by fellow Rikers inmate, moans about miserable life behind bars
Harvey Weinstein claims he was punched in the face by fellow Rikers inmate, moans about miserable life behind bars
Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein moaned about his miserable life at Rikers Island in a new jailhouse interview — claiming that he was pummeled in the face by a fellow inmate and is “constantly threatened and derided” by other prisoners.
Weinstein, who uses a wheelchair to get around, insisted safety concerns at the notorious New York City lockup have kept him confined to his cell for 23 hours a day, admitting in a one-hour sit-down with the Hollywood Reporter that he “wouldn’t last long” among the general population.
“One time, while I was waiting to use the phone, I asked the guy in front of me if he was done. He got off and punched me hard in the face,” the 73-year-old complained to the magazine in an interview published Tuesday.
“I fell on the floor, bleeding everywhere,” he said in the January interview. “I was hurt really badly. The cops asked me who had done it, but I couldn’t say. You can’t be a rat. That’s the law of the jungle,” Weinstein continued.
The disgraced Hollywood mogul, who likened Rikers to “hell,” remains there as he awaits a retrial for the third time on charges of raping an aspiring actress inside a Midtown hotel.
“I spend almost all of it in my cell. Sometimes I’ll go out in the wheelchair just to get some air, but that’s only half an hour. Mostly I’m in my cell 23 hours a day. I don’t have any human contact other than
with the guards,” he griped.
Weinstein complained that when he previously spent time with other inmates in the yard, he was incessantly nagged and felt like he was “under siege.”
“It’s too dangerous for me to be around anyone else. Other inmates get to go to the yard. But every time I’m out there, I feel like I’m under siege,” Weinstein said.
The former powerful producer claimed other prisoners have demanded money and legal services from his lawyers.
“I’m constantly threatened and derided. I wouldn’t last long out there.”
Weinstein has suffered from a laundry list of maladies, including chronic myeloid leukemia and spinal stenosis, which keep him wheelchair bound.
When asked if he was worried about dying in prison, Weinstein exclaimed that the premise “scares the s—t” out of him.
“Cold and heartless. It’s incredible to have the life that I had and the things that I did for society and not have the leniency to deal with me in a kinder way. Whatever they think I did bad in my life, I didn’t get the death penalty,” he said.
The convicted sex pest also revealed he doesn’t speak to his two daughters despite trying to contact them “lots of times.”
“They never respond. Their mother cut me off, too. It’s been radio silence from them ever since the allegations started,” Weinstein said, noting he still believes he can prove his innocence and win his estranged family over.
“I speak to three of my children every day: my oldest daughter, who is 30 now, and my 12-year-old, and my 15-year-old. My other two children haven’t talked to me for six years,” he said.
Weinstein shares his two youngest kids with ex-wife Georgina Chapman: daughter India, 15, and son Dashiell, 12. He and his first wife, Eve Chilton, had three daughters, Remy, Emma and Ruth.
“I also speak to my lawyers and to a few friends. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.”
Weinstein added that he watches mainstream blockbusters on a prison-provided tablet and orders piles of books to read to keep himself busy.
“I order them on Amazon, and they FedEx them to me. Sometimes a few a day. I’ve always liked to read, but there’s not much else to do here,” the convicted sex pest said.
“You don’t get the Times at Rikers — the only paper here is the Daily News. A friend sends me the
Sunday Book Review every week,” he continued.
“When I was on trial in LA, I went through my whole high school curriculum. ‘A Farewell to Arms.’ ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls.’ ‘Gatsby.’ I hadn’t read those books since I was 17.”
“Reading them at 72 years old, trapped in a cell — it just hits differently. Here at Rikers, I’m reading memoir after memoir … I just finished Tom Freston’s book, which was pretty good, actually,” Weinstein continued, referring to “Unplugged.”
“But then there’s a line in it that says, ‘I know Harvey Weinstein. He was a predator.’ It’s just one line. But
it broke my heart.”
The “Pulp Fiction” producer, who was accused of sexual assault in the wake of the 2017 #MeToo movement, remained adamant that he never sexually assaulted anybody — despite admitting to “overplaying” his hand with women.
“Did I make a pass at some of these women unsuccessfully? Did I overplay my hand? Yes. Was I pushy or overly seductive? Yes to all of that,” he told Maer Roshan.
“Look, I should never have gone out with the people I went out with. I was married to a fantastic woman who had no idea what I was doing. I lied all the time. I improperly used my staff to hide these things,” the disgraced studio executive wailed.
“But did I ever sexually assault a woman? No. I never did that.”
Weinstein was convicted of raping Jessica Mann at his first trial, in 2020, and of forcing oral sex on former “Project Runway” production assistant Mimi Haley. The verdict was then overturned in a bombshell ruling from New York’s highest appeals court.
At the retrial, Weinstein was convicted again on the Haley charge, which carries a sentence of up to 25 years in prison, but the jury could not agree on the Mann rap.
The jailed former movie bigwig made a long-shot bid for a retrial based on alleged juror misconduct, but a judge swatted it down in January.
At a third trial, Mann would be set to testify again about the once-powerful studio boss allegedly raping her in 2013 at the DoubleTree hotel.











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