My name is Rowena Chiu.
I am the mother of four children.
I live in Silicon Valley, and I worked for
Harvey Weinstein in 1998 when I was 24 years old.
A young woman eager to make her mark on the film industry, Rowena landed a dream job
as an assistant to one of the biggest names in Hollywood, producer Harvey Weinstein.
Just a few months later, at the Venice Film Festival, he sexually assaulted her.
Forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement by his lawyers, Rowena lived with the painful secret for nearly 20 years
before deciding to go public.
In doing so, she became part of the #MeToo movement that landed Weinstein behind bars.
Can you tell us
how you ended up working for Harvey Weinstein
and what led to the events of 1998?
I was always really keen
to get into the film industry.
I produced about 30 plays when I was at university,
I got a job working at
International Creative Management, the Hollywood talent agency.
And from there, I was recruited to join Harvey Weinstein’s office,
well, at that point in time in 1998,
Harvey was a huge legend on both sides of the Atlantic.
His reputation preceded him in that he was
the head of a studio that was responsible for films that everybody loved.
So of course, it was really exciting to someone who wants to get ahead in film
to go and work for Miramax.
It was like a dream come true.
So what happened in Venice?
When you attended the Venice Film Festival with him?
I was always shadowing
the other assistant, Zelda Perkins, because I was learning the job.
In the evenings I was left to read scripts whilst Zelda accompanied him to a public event.
I would stay back in the hotel room because I was a more junior assistant
and I would order some room service and read these scripts in preparation
for when Harvey came back and we would discuss the scripts
that would be called a script meeting, where I would talk about scripts
I read and decide which ones I thought were good and offer recommendations.
He would start by asking for a massage.
He would try to touch me inappropriately.
He would be not... barely wearing any clothes.
You know, he’d be either wearing a dressing gown
or not wearing that dressing gown at all.
We would be as assistants fully clothed.
He would ask me to take layers of clothing off.
He would say, it’s very hot in here.
I don’t think you can relax properly when you’re
wearing so many layers of clothes and so on and so forth.
Sexual assault and even attempted rape
doesn’t always look like how the movies portray it.
It is often more a slow process of cajoling,
forcing a persuasion,
when you are clearly keen to get out the room, you are clearly frightened.
After that fateful night, I understand that you spoke
to your colleague about the incident.
She immediately went down to confront him, and I was completely terrified.
I remember begging her not to do this
because I didn’t know what the repercussions would be.
So we made a difficult decision to go back to London, to regroup
and to figure out how to attack this.
Eventually, we found a High Street firm that was willing to take a bet on what happened,
and they agreed to represent us on a no-win, no-fee basis.
They gave us the advice that we should
invoke constructive dismissal, which is a legal term.
That means that in effect we have been dismissed from the company
because of the hostile work environment that we’re operating in.
Rowena and Zelda were asked to enter negotiations for a non-disclosure agreement.
The 30-page document they signed
had clauses saying that the two women could not speak to any loved ones, media, doctors or therapists.
They could not even talk to the tax authorities about the settlement they were going to receive.
The NDA also contained the names and addresses of their family and friends, a threat that Weinstein held over them.
I feel that the emotional aspect of that NDA,
far more than the financial aspect or the legal aspect,
really bound us into this ensuing silence that we maintained for 20 years.
Our own lawyers said to us,
“You have to treat this time of your life as a black hole
and never speak of it to anyone.
Our goal with the NDA is to allow you to draw a line
under an unfortunate episode in your life and move on.”
I don’t think trauma is something
you can draw a line under and move on with your life.
it is almost as though that pain and that trauma is trapped
in a time capsule and it is just as sharp, every single time you think of it.
Perhaps even more because you are not permitted to give it any air time.
So I think it is incredibly traumatic.
I mean, within two or three years of our signing that NDA,
I attempted suicide twice.
So what happened, you know, after 20 years
to finally make you speak out against
what had happened to you?
Jodi Kantor came to my doorstep,
my driveway in August 2017,
So Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey were two New York Times
journalists working on this investigative story about Harvey Weinstein.
So in August, which was a
few weeks before the story was finally published,
she doorstopped my husband, as he was cleaning out our minivan on the driveway.
My immediate reaction when I heard that Andrew
had been talking to this journalist was really one of absolute fear.
There was no question that I did not want to speak out.
I wanted to maintain my privacy.
So what changed
and what made you finally decide to do it?
Zelda Perkins asked
if I would consider giving my testimony at the UK’s House of Commons
as part of their Select Committee on sexual harassment in the workplace.
And whilst I was terrified to do so,
I felt that I owed Zelda tremendous amounts.
and I went forward as only Witness B and nobody knew of my name.
Looking in the faces of these MPs,
I saw the power of my own story being reflected in their faces,
You know, seeing the shock and the horror of the effect of my account upon them.
And I think from that day forward, I thought about
being more open about my story.
That was in March. By May, I called Jodi Kantor
and I said, I’m willing to be in the book.
That book was almost going to print.
And so there was a last-minute scramble where
And so there was a last-minute scramble.
Jodi conducted a number of interviews with me.
At the last minute.
They re-wrote their final drafts of that book,
and it went to publication on Sept 9,
2019.
And Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, Ashley Judd
and I sat on the couch at the NBC Today
show, The Breakfast Show, and I went live about my identity
in front of an audience of four million people.
How did it feel when the story finally broke?
and Weinstein was charged?
Journalists in the West often ask me, did it feel freeing?
Did it feel cathartic?
And I find it hard to answer that question with a straight face
because I think about all the trauma and the re-triggering that I endured in
speaking out, my worry that I would bring shame to my community.
And I think that as an Asian person,
I don’t see it as freeing and cathartic to use my voice,
but it has been a steep hill to get to a place
where I can use my voice.
What is your advice to victims of sexual assault?
I think if the #MeToo movement has only brought about one change,
I would like to think that women who have been survivors
of sexual assault feel empowered to speak up.
And so if I only had one message,
for somebody who is sitting
on a story of sexual assault in their own lives, I would say
tell somebody.
It doesn’t have to be a newspaper.
You don’t have to do it.
At the NBC Today
show in front of four million people.
You can go and tell a best friend.
You can go and report to HR.
You can go and tell your parents; because the weight of women
that have come forward has been a tsunami of support
for women that remain silent and remain oppressed.
And I think if too many women are too afraid to speak
against the men that perpetuate these kind of crimes,
then they will be enabled and emboldened to continue.
So one of the reasons why there’s a line in the movie
that says if these women are to jump, they will all do it together.
Thank you Rowena so much for sharing your story.