Newsom’s wife breaks down in tears while testifying in Harvey Weinstein rape trial
Tori Richards
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Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, testified with graphic detail on Monday about being attacked by Harvey Weinstein in the former movie mogul’s sexual assault trial in Los Angeles.
Newsom sobbed as she recalled meeting Weinstein at a Beverly Hills Hotel in 2005 to further her career as an actress, only for the former Hollywood titan to attack her. She was the fourth woman to testify about assaults that occurred between 2004 and 2013. The pair met at the Toronto International Film Festival, and Weinstein called Newsom later back in Los Angeles.
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Newsom said she was summoned to Weinstein’s hotel and expected to meet in the bar but was told to go to his suite. Once inside, Newsom discovered Weinstein in a bathrobe and said he began fondling himself. He grabbed Newsom and forced her to touch his penis, she testified.
“I was scared. This was not why I came here. It was like a complete manipulation of why I was there, and I just remembered physically trying to back away,” she said.
Weinstein then forced Newsom into his bedroom where he groped her breasts, removed her underwear, and raped her, she said.
“I was afraid of what he was doing, putting his body into my body and hurting me,” she testified.
Newsom fled the hotel, but it wasn’t her last encounter with Weinstein. The defense asked why she later emailed him for advice on dealing with the press. At the time, she was dating Gavin Newsom, then the mayor of San Francisco.
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“I believed that Harvey Weinstein had relationships with the press and understood how to handle the press and thought he could be helpful,” she said.
Back in the 1990s and 2000s, Weinstein was among the most powerful people in Hollywood, making or breaking careers with a string of award-winning films. A series of sexual assaults was uncovered by the press in 2017, and more than 100 women came forward. Weinstein has been convicted of rape and assault charges of two women in New York, a case that carries a 23-year sentence.