When Jennifer Siebel Newsom told her story on the stand, it was the first time that She had publicly spoken about what producer Harvey Weinstein had done to her. Understandably, at times during her testimony, she broke down in tears. Newsom explained that Weinstein came up to her to talk during the Toronto Film Festival in 2005, and he got back in touch with her in Los Angeles ostensibly to talk about her film career. She met him in his suite at the Beverly Hills Peninsula Hotel, and that’s where things took a terrifying turn. Newsom described how she felt when Weinstein came out in a bathrobe and started touching her inappropriately: “Horror! Horror! I’m trembling. I’m like a rock, I’m frigid. This is my worst nightmare. I’m just this blow-up doll!” (via NPR).
Newsom talked about how she didn’t know how to get out of the situation, how ashamed she felt afterward, and that she didn’t tell the police that Weinstein raped her. As a coping mechanism, Newsom tried to ignore what he’d done to her, but it clearly left a mark. “He ruined my life,” Newsom said during cross-examination. “I put it in a box and I was not going to not pursue my entertainment career because of what happened,” per Times of San Diego.
Post source: The List
