Melissa Thompson, a woman who has accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her, released a video of her interaction with Weinstein during a pitch meeting at The Weinstein Company’s offices in 2011, just hours before she says the rape occurred.
Thompson, a tech start-up owner, recorded the video as part of a pitch-meeting demo for Weinstein, and released it to Sky News. She is one of three women who are part of a class-action lawsuit filed against Weinstein and his former company. She accuses him of raping her in a room at the Tribeca Grand Hotel hours after the meeting.
Thompson said that she had expected to meet with the studio’s marketing team. Instead, Thompson said she found herself pitching Weinstein, who is seen in the video telling employees not to disturb them, then closing and locking the door. When Thompson offers a handshake, Weinstein instead embraces her, rubbing his hands across her back.
“So am I allowed to flirt with you?” Weinstein asks, to which Thompson replies, “Ummmm, we’ll see, a little bit.”
Later, after showing interest in Thompson’s demo, Weinstein is seen reaching under the table saying “”Let me have a little part of you. Give it to me.” Thompson told Sky News that Weinstein began rubbing her thigh at that point. She said she tried to discourage him.
“I didn’t want to blow the meeting,” she said. “At first I tried to volley a little bit with him. If he made a comment, I would try to catch it and return it in a way that felt a little safer than the way he threw it at me.”
“I worked in Wall Street before I went to business school, and I worked in an environment that was heavily male dominated,” Thompson added. “I thought I could handle it. I had never met anyone that I couldn’t handle… until Harvey Weinstein.”
Harvey Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said in a statement to Sky that the video had been edited, and that when viewed in full it “demonstrates that there is nothing forceful.” Instead, he said, it shows “casual — if not awkward — flirting from both parties.”
He added: “This is a further attempt to publicly disgrace Mr Weinstein for financial gain, and we will not stand for it.”
Weinstein has been arraigned on six sexual crime charges in New York and is being investigated by police in Los Angeles and London. He has denied all wrongdoing.