“Harvey Weinstein told me he liked Chinese girls. He liked them because they were discreet, he said — because they knew how to keep a secret. Hours later, he attempted to rape me.”
Rowena Chiu, former assistant to Harvey Weinstein, went public last month to share on The Today Show that Weinstein allegedly attempted to rape her in 1998.
Chiu wrote an opinion piece, published yesterday, for The New York Times that explained how the power dynamics of gender, race, seniority, and wealth ultimately worked against her.
“I was a woman in an industry in which women still struggle to be taken seriously,” she wrote. “Harvey was a man in an industry in which men dominate, and he often used that dominance to claim sexual favors.”
Chiu had signed a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that prevented her from sharing any information with others. She said she attempted suicide twice before leaving Miramax, Weinstein’s entertainment company.
“I lived in constant fear of Harvey’s abuse, control and power; that the story would come back to haunt me; that I would inadvertently slip up on my promise to never speak of this,” wrote Chiu. “I suffered, completely isolated from those around me who could have provided the support I needed: a loved one, a trusted pastor, a respected therapist — even the man I would marry. I spent decades grappling with guilt that I took the job, that I hadn’t left the room sooner, that it was somehow my fault, that I hadn’t handled Harvey ‘robustly’ enough, that I was not tough enough to work in the film industry.”
In September 2018, Chiu was one of the millions who tuned in to watch Dr. Christine Blasey Ford testify against Brett Kavanaugh. Chiu ended up participating in a 2019 group interview with Dr. Ford and other survivors. She hesitated for a while before agreeing to go public with her story in She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement, written by her interviewers Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, the two NY Times journalists who contributed to outing Weinstein in 2017.
Chiu said that after her appearance on The Today Show, Weinstein threatened to sue her.
“I don’t know what the path ahead looks like. But for now, I am getting used to being stopped in the street to talk about #MeToo; I am happy that my children can know my secret; I am grateful to be able to be honest with family and friends, who are coming forward in droves to offer support. I can briefly glory in the relief that I am no longer sitting on a sickening secret that has — finally and ultimately — come to light.”
Read the full opinion piece here.
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