Front Burner - Harvey Weinstein, NDAs and living in silence

Episode Date: January 7, 2020

Harvey Weinstein's criminal trial starts this week. The former movie producer faces charges of predatory sexual assault and rape, and has pleaded not guilty on all counts. Today on Front Burner, The N...ational's Adrienne Arsenault brings us the stories of two women, not involved with the criminal case, who were both assistants to Weinstein. They've accused him of sexual misconduct, and allege he has used non-disclosure agreements to keep women silent for years.

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Starting point is 00:00:01 This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. More than two years after the New York Times revealed allegations of sexual misconduct, Harvey Weinstein's criminal trial begins this week. conduct, Harvey Weinstein's criminal trial begins this week. We are here to ensure that the focus of this criminal case is on the perpetrator's actions, not his victims. You thought you could terrorize me and others into silence. You were wrong. Those were the voices of Rosanna Arquette and Rose McGowan, just two of over 80 women who have now alleged that Weinstein is a sexual predator. The movie producer faces charges of predatory sexual assault and rape
Starting point is 00:00:52 relating to two accusers. He denies all of this and is pleading not guilty. We've heard high profile actresses like Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek talk about their own harrowing alleged experiences with the Hollywood mogul. But there were also women, young women, who worked for Weinstein as assistants, who were allegedly preyed on as well. My colleague Adrienne Arsenault spoke to two of them. Both are not the plaintiffs in this criminal case, but signed non-disclosure agreements, or NDAs, and are taking serious risks in speaking out now. Today, their stories, and how they raise questions about the use of NDAs. This is Frontburner. Adrienne, thank you so much for coming back.
Starting point is 00:01:43 On the podcast, always a pleasure to have you here. I want to start with Rowena Chu's story. Who is she? Well, if we go back to the time we're talking about, which is the late 90s, she's 24 years old. She was a graduate from Oxford in English literature. This is a young woman who got, you know, really a dream job, which was the second European assistant
Starting point is 00:02:06 to Harvey Weinstein at Miramax. In those days, Miramax Films was a company that everybody wanted to work for, bringing arthouse films into the commercial space. So that meant being in a tag team situation with the first assistant. That was a woman named Zelda Perkins, also very young. And it really, it sounded incredibly glamorous. Travelling with Harvey to various European film festivals, sometimes visiting film sets from Miramax films that were being filmed in Europe. And at night
Starting point is 00:02:34 the sort of the routine was the first assistant, Zelda, would go to fancy events with him while the second assistant stayed back and reviewed the scripts. I felt like at a young age, we would have a say. We would, you know, be influencing the next films that Miramax funded. So again, big job.
Starting point is 00:02:52 And then when Harvey Weinstein would come back from these events, there'd be a switchover. And the second assistant would work with him directly from about 10 p.m. to about 2 a.m. Wow. Going over those scripts. So that's who she was. She was a young woman with a fabulous education and a great job. It does sound like a dream job. When did she first realize that something wasn't quite right, though,
Starting point is 00:03:17 while working with Harvey Weinstein? She told us that she had heard rumors. We knew that he had a legendary temper. I did understand that there would be an element of my job that would be about managing Harvey, perhaps managing his inappropriate comments. But she was also told that, you know, if she handled him, the word she used was robustly,
Starting point is 00:03:37 she'd be fine. But, you know, her very first meeting of him, she says, kind of went off the rails. I mean, the first time they met, what happened is she went to see a screening of Shakespeare in Love. He essentially ignored us until we sat down, and then he ordered me to sit in front of him. And she sort of thought, you know, the screening room wasn't that busy. There were lots of empty seats. So she sat down, and then... I thought that I was in his way,
Starting point is 00:04:02 and so I tried to preempt the need for clarity on the screen, and I moved across one. And he allegedly screamed at her to stay exactly where she was, not move. You know, that was really a sense of the kind of power play that goes on when you're working for Harvey. Can you tell me what Rowena told you about what happened to her in 1998 at the Venice Film Festival? Sure. She says it was the second night that she was in the suite with Harvey Weinstein going over the scripts. Again, this is the night shift from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. And she maintains that he started the way he did the night before, sort of making inappropriate conversations. He asked me a bit about my boyfriend. We had been working mostly on the bed,
Starting point is 00:04:51 in the sense that I was half sitting on the bed and the scripts were spread out on the bed. He had taken his clothes off, so he was naked. So he requested a massage from me, which I was reluctant to give him. He asked me to take off some of my layers of clothing, saying that it was warm in the hotel room or that I'd feel more comfortable if I took off more clothes. And eventually she said, you know, I'm going to have to take off a pair of nylons. And I say it like that because she had worn two pairs of tights. There had been rumors, of course,
Starting point is 00:05:24 to wear more clothes around Harvey Weinstein. And it's unclear when you're in the film industry how much of that is a joke. And I thought, well, it won't do any harm if I've got extra layers of clothing on. And if something terrible were to happen, it may buy me some time. There were these little wisdoms, it sounds like, that the women were passing amongst themselves. Don't sit on the same side of the couch as him. Wear a puffy jacket where you can. So they maintain. This is how they sort of managed to get along.
Starting point is 00:05:51 So she took off one pair of tights, she says. Sort of to appease him? You know, the way she described it was, you know, if I do this and then we just keep working, maybe I can distract him a bit. And this will be enough and it will quiet him down. One thing that I think was important for my personal safety is not to outrightly enrage him. But I think that Harvey liked to think of himself as a seducer. So I think if you manage to keep things calm calm and keep things pleasant you can try and talk your
Starting point is 00:06:25 way out of a situation or at least that's what I thought he then took off she maintains her second pair of of tights and she told us she was terrified that he that her underwear would be next it led to him pinning me against the bed and and asking just one thrust and saying, just one thrust and it'll all be over. And she said no, that didn't happen. She managed to get off the bed and she managed at some point to get out of there, but said it was completely terrifying. And a key point about this is when you hear about Harvey Weinstein and the actresses who have accused him, the situation is different.
Starting point is 00:07:08 You have actors who are with him for perhaps brief meetings. What the young assistants went through, they tell us, is that this was their employer who they saw all the time. It wasn't taking a meeting that becomes a horror. It's someone you kind of have to see the next day. And so there was, they described this over and over again, this sort of balancing act. I tried to make sure that he didn't get outright angry and that he thought that there might be, you know, future opportunities because then for that night at least you can escape. you know, future opportunities, because then for that night, at least you can escape. Right. That is an extraordinary detail that she wore two pairs of tights. I can't imagine feeling like that was something that I needed to do to protect myself on a daily basis or often from
Starting point is 00:07:58 my employer. I know. It's a terrible situation. I understand he also remarked on her ethnicity. Yeah, I found that interesting. She said that he alluded several times to her ethnicity. He mentioned how he liked Chinese girls because they were discreet, and he would say that in public. But then in private, that would be twisted around to be that he'd never had a Chinese girl and that he wanted to try and this kind of thing. So after Rowena was able to extricate herself from the hotel room,
Starting point is 00:08:36 what happened after that? She says that, you know, it was very late at night and she had to return a cell phone to Zelda. These are the age when cell phones were sort of rare and monstrous, you know, big things, and not something you'd sort of slip under, slip beside a hotel door. So she woke her up and gave it to her, thought for a moment, I need to talk to her, but realized how tired Zelda was, so she actually let her go back to sleep. And then the next morning when they were alone together,
Starting point is 00:09:05 she sort of said, look, here's what happened. And her reaction was immediate. You know, she reacted very emotionally. In fact, I think we both cried. Zelda, as sort of the senior assistant, even though she was just, you know, 25, was appalled. I was insanely furious because I felt that I had a care of duty to Rowena.
Starting point is 00:09:26 And then went and did something I'm not sure many people would do. She confronted Harvey Weinstein at a lunch she was having with some reportedly very important people at a terrace. She took him, said, you need to come with me right now. She took him to a hallway. She said he came very quickly, realized something was going on. And she asked him exactly a hallway. She said he came very quickly, realized something was going on. And she asked him exactly what happened. She maintains that he swore on the life of his wife and children that he did not hurt Rowena, did not touch her. And Zelda told us that that she, that's the moment
Starting point is 00:09:58 where she knew he was lying. Because she says she'd heard that excuse in the past from him. At times when she knew he was lying. The excuse that he swore on the life of his wife and children. That's right. She claims that was his default answer, and so that was her cue that, uh-oh, this, this, yes, this happens. So Zelda and Rowena decided, look, they have to do something. They go back to London. They wanted to report it to the company.
Starting point is 00:10:25 They spoke to a supervisor. She said that I needed to get a lawyer. They found one. They tried to resign. That set off certainly some alarm bells and Harvey Weinstein started calling Zelda again and again, leaving voicemail messages, offering to come and talk. Let's sort this out, let's come to London and settle it. Ultimately, they end up in the offices of his lawyers. And they had to agree to an NDA. At the time, it was called a confidentiality agreement. But they had to agree to a sum of money in exchange for silence before there was any other negotiation.
Starting point is 00:11:01 So their description is they were young, they were overwhelmed, even their own lawyer was outgunned if you will. They were offered 250,000 pounds to be split between them. They didn't ask for money, they were offered that. What they wanted was enforcement of things he had to do. Therapy, not to be alone with women assistants while on the road. If we were going to have to enter an agreement, we had to enter into an agreement that was equally as complicated for Weinstein
Starting point is 00:11:35 and that would protect others and stop his behavior. All we had to negotiate with was silence. They did end up getting sign-off on the therapy session, but the key thing is here, they have no idea if that was ever followed through. They were never given a copy. They were not allowed to have a copy of their own NDA. Of their own non-disclosure agreement. Not allowed to get a copy of it. Zelda says she managed over time from her lawyer to get five pages of a very long agreement. She showed them to us, Harvey Weinstein's initials right there in the corner. But part of the agreement said they cannot speak of this to anyone, not even family.
Starting point is 00:12:18 They had to give a list of people they had already spoken to about it. Zelda refused to do that. Could never speak of it, could never say why they left the company. They could seek the counsel of a therapist if they needed it, but that therapist would have to sign his or her own NDA. And if they broke the confidentiality agreement, we were the ones who Miramax would come after for breach of contract.
Starting point is 00:12:45 Wow. If ever they were asked about their experiences at the company, they could only talk about it in the most positive terms, and they would have to support Harvey Weinstein. To me, the most horrifying part of this is that we had six or seven very reputable lawyers in that room. I had my own counsel. Every single person in that room did not say that there was anything wrong with us signing that agreement. That agreement was unethical and egregious on every level. What was it like for them to not be able to talk about what happened? I imagine that's an enormous burden to carry around. Yeah, I think the weight of a secret is especially heavy. Both
Starting point is 00:13:23 Rowena actually and Zelda described a moment that's pretty striking. So if you can imagine, they've been negotiating with these lawyers for many, many hours. They're exhausted. They get in a cab together after leaving the lawyer's office. That's the very day they've signed the agreement. And it's clear before they part in that cab that day. It felt so onerous that Zelda and I implicitly made a pact that we wouldn't speak to one another.
Starting point is 00:13:48 And so one of them gets dropped off first, they say goodbye. The next time I heard from Zelda was October 2017, and we'd signed that agreement in October 1998. And in that time, the effect of them was very different. Zelda tried to find work. Every job interview she went to, all anyone wanted to know, why did you leave Miramax? Everybody knew who I was and would ask me pretty vile questions.
Starting point is 00:14:14 She couldn't say, she was paralyzed, couldn't say any of these things. Her ultimate decision was to completely withdraw from her life in London, to move to Guatemala for five years to train horses. Away from family, friends. So for Rowena, it seems to have had a more profound impact. Keep in mind, she alleged attempted rape, and the burden of having to keep that secret appears to be too much for her sometimes.
Starting point is 00:14:40 An inability to speak to anyone in my personal life about really quite a traumatic event meant really it wasn't possible to process it. She sort of described it as breaking her life. I found it an impossible burden to bear really and it came to a point where I tried to kill myself a couple of times. And it really wasn't until roughly 2016, 2017 that Jodie Cantor, a New York Times journalist, arrived at Rowena's home. So it's an interesting scene. Rowena's not there.
Starting point is 00:15:11 Her husband is there, though. So Jodie asks the husband, you know, where is she? Here's roughly why I'm here to see her. And it became very, very clear that he knew nothing about this. And so she obviously hadn't even told the love of her life. That is an enormous burden to carry around on your own. So for me I was 24 and in some ways it was a part of how I formed as a young adult that this secret and the things that happened in Venice in 98 have always been there and so I've had to build a life around them and I've had to build relationships
Starting point is 00:15:43 and my sense of self-identity around a secret that's always been there. You mentioned before that there was this moment in the cab where they realized that they couldn't speak anymore. Why? Well, they weren't supposed to talk about it ever again. Even with each other? That's the impression they were left with. Whether that's what it said in the document, we don't know. But the impression they were left with is that the cloak of secrecy was like a heavy weighted blanket and that they couldn't,
Starting point is 00:16:23 they were terrified, terrified to break it. What convinced them to speak out now? You mentioned Jodie Cantor of the New York Times. Well, I mean, it is interesting to be talking with people about why they can't talk. You know, at some point you say, but aren't you breaking it right now? So you've got two very different people. So Zelda Perkins, very spirited. She decided at some point enough time had passed and she needed to speak out. She'd reached a point where she wanted it out and she wanted a change to happen. She was aware that reporters were trying to tell the story. And so she took so she just took a risk she thought was important. I did it because I thought that public opinion would protect me.
Starting point is 00:17:11 And I hope that if I step forward, any other women that had signed agreements with Weinstein would feel safe enough to step forward too. Jodie Cantor, founder, asked to see her. They met in London. And it's in London where Zelda says, okay. And then she opens her purse and pulls out these five crumpled pages and says, this is all I have. Have a look. That was a huge moment. Rowena, in the early days, she was not going to
Starting point is 00:17:38 go on the record. It really wasn't until Jodie Cantor and Megan Toohey of New York Times, after they had broken the story, through some of the most meticulous investigative reporting, I mean, really, like, pounding the pavement, really meticulous reporting, it's not until they were putting their book together when Rowena decided she had to talk. And she'd sort of been inching her way towards doing it.
Starting point is 00:18:02 She was and continues to be fearful of repercussions. To speak today, it's another breaking of my NDA. Keeping a secret for 20 years in that way makes it very difficult to wake up one morning and come out and speak to a reporter. She has a lot more potentially on the line. She says her parents are very traditional. She says that comes with more of a sense of shame. So I should say we, of course, have reached out to Harvey Weinstein in a number of ways through his lawyers, and then eventually people from his public relations, representing him in terms of public relations, got back with a statement. It's kind of interesting. It says, quote, neither Mr. Weinstein nor his representatives
Starting point is 00:18:46 will be making any comments on these matters. I hope you can remain objective. Hmm. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. The Weinstein case has obviously sparked a lot of debate about the use of NDAs in sexual misconduct and sexual assault cases in the workplace and elsewhere. Can you tell me more
Starting point is 00:19:32 about that? Yeah, that's interesting. You know, what's happening with these non-disclosure agreements? Is there sort of an institutionalization of harassment and assault going on? Is it allowing for a system that sort of lets these things continue to happen? So at the core, the question is, should NDAs be used in cases of sexual assault? Like what place do they have? They take all the control away from an alleged victim. And yes, they can buy a victim momentary peace, but there is this danger that if you look at NDAs collectively, if there are enough of them, I mean, in the case we're talking about Harvey Weinstein, Megan Toohey, and Jodi Kantor say that they were able
Starting point is 00:20:17 to identify sort of roughly eight NDAs, which is to suggest, if this is true, that he was hurting women and going on to hurt more women, and that there was this cloak of secrecy that allowed that to continue and didn't stop it. So do they have a place? And then is it possible to have privacy but not secrecy? You know, these women want to keep their privacy, but they also want some control over what they say and to whom. I understand some states in the U.S. have limited their use.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Yeah, they have. I mean, it doesn't appear that there's anything on the books in Canada, no direction from the Law Society on this, which is not to say that won't become an issue. But as yet, it doesn't seem to be a robust conversation. And there are many who would argue it needs to be. Why do you think that is? It's really hard to talk about something you don't know exists. When you have women or anyone who has been pressured, arguably, to sign an NDA, and then they don't talk about it, then you have no idea how many of them are out there in any company or in any circumstance. You know, should someone who is applying for work at company X be allowed to say, just curious, how many NDAs have been signed here? I would like to
Starting point is 00:21:41 know what the corporate culture is of the place I'm coming to. These aren't discussions that seem to be happening, which is why I think it's arguably phase two of Me Too, which is taking it beyond the acts of an individual to a systemic behavior. And, you know, of course, this isn't just the Weinstein case that we're talking about. Other high profile cases, we're talking about the use of Ns, too. I know Gretchen Carlson right now is asking Fox News to release women who spoke about sexual harassment in the workplace from their NDAs. So I see this as the next phase of the revolution, that women want their voices back. It's time that, as the majority of the population in the United States of America, that enough is enough. We want to be able to say what happened to us.
Starting point is 00:22:25 So perhaps all of this discussion will lead to something in the coming year. Arguably it might. You know, Me Too led to a movement of sorts. But again, you go back to the extraordinary journalistic work of these New York Times journalists, Megan Toohey and Jodi Kantor, what becomes very, very clear to them is that when you get right down to the tangible business of how the courts have behaved in the wake of Me Too, very little seems to have changed.
Starting point is 00:23:02 How are Rowena and Zelda doing today? Well, firstly, they have a relationship again. You know, which is really, they're both really funny, and they're really nice women, and they are getting to know each other again, which is really quite lovely to see. Nearly two decades on. No kidding.
Starting point is 00:23:19 Zelda's become a bit of an activist. Rowena is sort of emerging. She is hearing from a number of other victims of, we're not necessarily talking about the Weinstein situation, but other victims. And she said those people are sort of lifting her up and giving her some courage. But also from people who are silent even to this day and they feel like I in some way speak for them. I am honored and privileged to be able to do so. She's apprehensive because she did hear from Harvey Weinstein. His lawyer issued a statement saying that Harvey Weinstein and I had engaged in a six-month physical consensual relationship
Starting point is 00:24:05 and that Harvey was studying ways to take legal action against me for breaking my NDA. Wow. That is, in her mind, terrifying again. Okay. Adrienne Arsenault, thank you so much. Hello. I don't know. You can check out Adrienne's stories about the Harvey Weinstein case on The National tonight. You'll see her interview with Rowena Chu.
Starting point is 00:24:45 And yesterday, after court proceedings wrapped up in New York, LA prosecutors announced that they've charged Harvey Weinstein for sexually assaulting two women as well. We believe the evidence will show that the defendant used his power and influence to gain access to his victims and then committed violent crimes against them. The case is still under investigation. That's it for today. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner and see you all tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.

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