Another allegation of sexual harassment has emerged against producer Harvey Weinstein. This time, a U.K. freelance writer has written a first-person piece in the Sunday Times of London, indicating that what she thought was a business meeting devolved into Weinstein inviting her to share his bath.
Liza Campbell claimed Weinstein asked her to “jump in the bath” with him as she heard him disrobe shortly after she arrived at his room at the posh Savoy hotel. “Come on, it’ll be fun,” she quoted Weinstein saying. “We can drink champagne. You can soap me – whaddaya say?”
At the time, Campbell was a freelance script-reader for Weinstein’s Miramax. She said the comments left her angry and fearful.
“My immediate reaction was fury,” she wrote. “I’m a mother, a bloody grown-up, not some naive ingénue; what the hell does he take me for? I also felt fear. Harvey Weinstein is huge, a pocked bullock, like a hitman from The Sopranos.”
Campbell claims she responded to Weinstein’s offer with a threat: “If you come back into this room with no clothes on, I’m going to fucking lose my temper.”
Several women have reported Weinstein used the bath routine on them. Fox News reporter Lauren Sivan also reported that Weinstein lured her into a restaurant kitchen vestibule and masturbated into a potted plant, forcing her to watch by blocking any exit with his bulky body. These and other stories have emerged following a New York Times expose on Weinstein. The story allegedly claimed he has settled at least eight sexual harassment lawsuits. He has subsequently been placed on leave by his company.
Weinstein has said he will sue the Times for its story, claiming the newspaper had a “vendetta” against him.
