Harvey Weinstein sat down with conservative political commentator Candace Owens for a tell-all interview on-camera from prison, in which the defamed producer maintains his innocence and rebuffs the claims of his Hollywood accusers.
Weinstein opens the interview by claiming he was “wrongfully convicted,” denouncing the fact he was twice found guilty of sexual crimes: First in 2020 of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape, and the second in 2022 of rape. His 2020 conviction was overturned in 2024 because the trial judge allowed testimony based on accusations that were not included in the case, a point Weinstein brings up multiple times, seemingly as evidence to support his innocence. He describes his actions as merely “mistakes” and asserts he has done nothing “illegal.”
“I hurt my family. I hurt my friends. I cheated on my wife. And that was a mistake, you know, a terrible mistake,” Weinstein said. “But I did not commit these crimes. I swear that before God, and the people watching now, and on my family.”
The infidelity, he asserts, was triggered by the pressures of his work. “Oh, I was not a good boss,” he admits. “I was tough and I was demanding, and I should have been better at it, but I wasn’t. I had a temper. You know, I just should have controlled myself better. And the pressures of that work was my excuse for the cheating.”
Owens then prompted Weinstein to discuss some of his former accusers, including Gwyneth Paltrow. In 2017, Paltrow claimed Weinstein invited her into his hotel room, put his hands on her and suggested a massage after casting her in the 1996 film “Emma.” The incarcerated Weinstein called the accusation “a complete fabrication.” Though he admitted that he “definitely made a pass,” he claimed he “didn’t touch her.”
“She thought the relationship was abusive. Anybody who was there, who witnessed that relationship with [Paltrow], it just turned into total friends,” Weinstein said. “There’s pictures of her hugging me when I was sick and in the hospital and didn’t think I was gonna make it in 1999. Gwyneth, at the Golden Globes, said, ‘Bomber, we miss you.’ She got up and made a speech about me. Nobody asked her to do that. In her Academy speech, she thanks me.”
Weinstein argues that his falling-out with Paltrow instead happened because he didn’t like the script for Donna Tartt’s “Secret History” that Paltrow and her brother Jake Paltrow wrote after he had optioned the bestseller.
Weinstein also addressed Rose McGowan, who came forward in a bombshell New York Times article published in 2017, claiming that Weinstein paid her $100,000 to stay silent about a sexual encounter at the Sundance Film Festival. The article quotes a legal document in connection with the cash, which states that the money was “not to be construed as an admission” by Weinstein, and was only to “avoid litigation and buy peace.”
Weinstein said the money was to make sure his infidelity to his then-wife, Eve Chilton, remained a secret.
“I settled with Rose McGowan,” he said. “I gave her $100,000, you know, to say…just don’t tell my wife, don’t get me in trouble.”
As for what Weinstein has been up to since his historic fall from Hollywood royalty, he tells a clearly sympathetic Owens he’s been helping some of his industry connections develop their films from jail.
“I have friends who are still in the industry who slip me their screenplays and ask me for notes,” Weinstein said. “You know, can I do something for it? Can I help? Can I improve it? And I just give them my honest thoughts. So I’m not doing anything for me, but I’m doing things for others.”
Weinstein is currently on trial in New York and charged with two counts of committing a “criminal sexual act” in the first degree and one count of third-degree rape. The charges stem from accusations by former model Kaja Sokola, former TV production assistant Miriam Haley and actor Jessica Mann.
A portion of the Owens-Weinstein interview premieres on YouTube on Tuesday. The full interview, available now, can only be accessed through Owens’ paid subscription service.
