hello from the Financial Times in London
I'm pilita Clarke and this is news in
focus where we offer our insights into
the stories that matter it's nearly two
years to the day since the New York
Times and The New Yorker published
explosive reports revealing that more
than a dozen women had accused Harvey
Weinstein The Hollywood producer of
sexual assault and other crimes over a
period of at least 30 years the scandal
triggered the me2 movement and mr.
Weinstein co-founder of the Miramax
Entertainment Group is now awaiting
trial on rape and other sex crime
charges all of which he denies Rowena
Chiu is a former Miramax employee who
kept quiet about her experiences with
mr. Weinstein until a month ago she's
here with me now along with the FTS
legal correspondent Kate ple and Rowan
is going to tell her story and explain
how a nondisclosure agreement forced her
to remain silent for more than 20 years
and why she's decided to speak out now
Rowena let's start at the beginning and
tell us a little bit about your life
before you met Harvey Weinstein so in
1998 I had only graduated from
university two years previously so
really working for Harvey was my first
or second job out of college and what
had you been studying in college I read
English language and literature at
Oxford and how come you decided to get
into the film industry
so Doc's what I did a great deal of film
and theatre I worked in theatre for a
short while but films seemed to have
more long-term prospects and so I ended
up at international creative management
which was one of Hollywood's big talent
agencies and it was from ICM that I was
recruited to work for Harvey's office
here in London here in London and so you
started working for him in 1998 in
Miramax's officers here that's right and
you'd actually been warned I think by
Zelda Perkins one of mr. Bernstein's
assistants here in London that he could
be a bit of a pest and he was someone to
look out for is that right right so I
think that at my interview with Zelda
she had said that he was difficult to
manage and
I was to handle him robustly and I think
it is important to stress that you know
pretty much every boss in the film
industry is difficult to manage with a
man or woman so I I didn't feel deterred
by the fact that he would be hard to
manage I think that's a sort of part of
the you know business of being an
assistant in the film industry it wasn't
particularly clear how much that
difficulty is to do with temper and how
much of it was to do with sexual
predator and obviously that became
unfortunately quite clear later okay so
you started working for him in 98 and
what specifically was the role I was
also an assistant to Harvey Weinstein
both Selda and I were assisting him and
I was learning the job from Zelda so I
was in effect a second assistant it is a
it was our role when Harvey came over to
London and then travelled across Europe
to accompany him I'm either on to film
festivals most typically but also if
films were shooting across Europe we
would also do that kind of travel and
then the times in between when he was in
the US or elsewhere in the world we
would be back at the office working on
general office work as in reading
scripts and general work from a Miramax
yeah and so when you first met him how
did he seem to you he is certainly right
from the beginning very difficult to
handle he when I first met Harvey it was
at a screening room in Soho where we
were looking at a most recent version of
Shakespeare in Love certainly it's not
like a typical encounter with a boss as
in there are no pleasantries and he
doesn't come to me say hi I'm Harvey
Weinstein and I hear you're Roe you know
in joining my office really I was asked
to you know do exactly what he asked me
to do and so I tell a story about how we
sat in a screening room and he asked me
to sit in front of him and that was
really my sort of audition as it were
for working for Harvey
because what happened well it's he asked
me to sit in front of him during the
screening and if I were to move in any
way from sitting in front of him he
would yell at me
abusive obviously mm-hmm but then you
went to the Venice Film Festival and
tell us what happened there the next
month I traveled to the Venice Film
Festival and the Deauville Film Festival
and we did the two festivals
back-to-back it's a fairly typical trip
with Harvey you got a call from New York
saying he's on his way
and you're whisked off by limousine and
private jet and essentially as his
assistant you do what you can to
facilitate his time while he's there so
that coming your phone calls and
organizing meetings and making sure that
the flow in and out of the office which
is the same as a hotel room suite is
smooth so that's really the job of the
assistant on the night in question
typically what happens is elves are
being the more senior of the two
assistants would wake Harvey in the
morning and work with him in the morning
from about 6:00 a.m. to about 10:00 a.m.
on her own and then I would come on duty
and we would work together during the
business of the day which is typically
from about 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. so
it's a long day in the evening I would
remain back at the hotel which also
doubled as our office reading scripts
sorting out paperwork lining up calls
and things like that and Zelda would
accompany him to the event of that
evening be at a dinner or a gala or an
award ceremony okay so tell us what
happened on at the moment when he made
some really quite extraordinary advances
towards you well I think it is fairly
typical of an assistants life that you
stay back in the hotel I had read some
of the scripts so when he got back from
the dinner or the event you would ask
which scripts I had read and for my
thoughts on those scripts and so we
would spend a lot of the evening
discussing the content of the scripts
and what I thought was strong and what I
thought was not particularly strong and
that segwayed into you know more general
discussions about my ambitions for being
in the film industry you know at that
time I was just starting out in film so
he would talk a lot about the things
that I'd wanted to do with my life in
film and some of that would segue into
personal details as to who I was dating
who my boyfriend was at the time what
his aspirations were and so on and so
forth
so I think you know there's a process
where some of the discussion is
professional and to do with the work
that I was there for which is assessing
scripts and you know fairly quickly the
conversation turns to personal and and
also physical because you know as we all
know from the various accounts of things
that have happened to people in
different hotel rooms there are requests
massagers harvey is frequently naked in
these types of situations and you know
it can become unpleasant and difficult
quite quickly and was he naked when
you're in the hotel room yes so did you
just arrive walking the door and I'm
already in the hotel at the time when he
returns from his event when he returns
from his event in order to be
comfortable he gets into a robe right
and then removes the road robe correct
and you've written in the New York Times
this month about your experience and how
you decided that it would be a good idea
to wear two pairs of tights why was that
well I think that you know there's a
certain amount of controlling and
harassment that comes with working for
Harvey and it's imprudent at the time to
try to wear as many layers of clothes as
possible because it buys you time if you
need to get out of the room I mean it's
while he's strolling around naked were
you expected to sit there and just
concentrate on the scripts and the work
that you were doing or what was the that
is frequently what we did oh the two of
you well actually he would only be naked
in there as I understand it in the early
mornings and the late evening so it's
not something that he would do while two
of us were in the room so for example
with our NDA one of the things that we
had originally asked for was that he who
travel with two people because that is a
form of protection much in the way that
two pairs of tights would be hmm so what
happened on that particular evening and
so it was a fairly typical evening in
the sense that I was reading scripts and
we're having some discussion about the
scripts which you know bled into
discussion on the personal nature and
things became you know difficult quite
quickly and I ended up being pushed
against the bed and he attempted to rape
me
after that happened what did you decide
to do well the following morning I went
to talk to seller as soon as we had time
on our own which was really when Harvey
left the hotel suite for lunch and we
you know I told her what had happened
the night before which was a difficult
conversation and she reacted pretty
emotionally and so we were both in the
hotel room you know really considering
our options and I think it was very
difficult for us at that time we were
far from home I was 24 she was 25 and we
actually had very few resources at our
disposal and we had come to Venice via
means that Mer acts are provided by
transportation that they provided via an
Amex corporate card that they provided
we didn't have a lot of resources at our
own disposal to make her own way back to
London so we had briefly talked about
going to the Italian police but it just
seemed incredibly difficult neither of
us spoke Italian we didn't know whether
we'd be believed and so you know it
seemed that the best option was to
continue with the trip with certain
providers clearly in place so number one
Zelda was apps the adamant that she was
going to go down and confront have him
right away
which she did and she was also adamant
that I wouldn't spend any time in a
hotel room room with him by myself for
the rest of the trip and she very much
protected me in that sense and I didn't
spend any alone time with Harvey for the
rest that trip but we did finish the
trip in Venice and also subsequently at
the Deauville Film Festival and so it
was really fast forward a few days when
we go back to London when we considered
longer-term what our options would be
and you know we did approach more senior
people in the office you know really our
first port of call with Donna gelati who
was a producer on Shakespeare in Love
and we but you know there weren't very
many people working in the Miramax
office at that time so you know Donna
wasn't the most senior person when he go
to you and there weren't many other
alternatives I mean well it wasn't like
working for a corporate company where
there's an HR policies in place and HR
offices to go to perhaps there would be
more of that in New York but in London
we were an outpost
yeah and eventually you decided that you
should look at hiring a lawyer so Donna
had recommended that we hire a lawyer
and you know really at 24 and 25 we
didn't know how to go about finding a
lawyer we sort of did what in retrospect
seems to be ridiculous things but we
went and talked to the Citizens Advice
bureaux I was in law school at the time
so I spoke to my law professor at the
time but you know we spoke on the
condition of anonymity we didn't mention
our names we didn't say who we worked
for we didn't even say which industry we
were in and so there's only really so
much advice people can give you when you
can't part with any of the details of
why you're you might be seeking a lawyer
so you know Zelda and I won't
Zelda walked around Soho looking for a
lawyer and eventually we were able to
hire a small firm that took on the
negotiations for the NDA okay and now
tell us what happened then because you
had this reasonably small firming and of
course
Miramax had quite a large for them and
what happened in initially once you had
decided to go with the small firm our
first step was to invoke constructive
dismissal and to fax the New York office
to say that Zelda and I were resigning
so that was the first step that we took
in we invoked constructive dismissal
over Harvey's behavior with the help of
the lawyers that you hired by ourselves
and then you know we were contacted by
Harvey's lawyers quite quickly after
that okay and so then you hired your own
lawyers and they took it from there when
it came to dealing with Harvey Weinstein
smiles
so before we invoke constructive
dismissal we had a law firm who agrees
to support us in the process of
negotiating with Harvey or whatever
might come about so once we were
contacted by Harvey's lawyers things
moved pretty quickly and what happened
so we were summoned to negotiations at
you know large London or firm which
turned out to be Allen & Overy
and so we spent time at the offices of
Allen & Overy
while an agreement was bashed out and
non-disclosure
for both of you and so it wasn't really
for both of us it wasn't really when we
started these kinds of negotiations it
wasn't the intention that we would sign
a settlement agreement in fact we very
much wanted to take Harvey either to
legal authorities that would be the
police or report him within his own
corporate structure and since Harvey was
a CEO of Miramax and that would have
meant going to the Walt Disney Company
so the priority at that time was really
to expose Harvey and to stop these types
of assaults happening to any other women
it certainly wasn't to sign a settlement
agreement or to take any form of settle
well who advised you to take the
agreement our lawyers
so it was offered by Allen & Overy well
as I've said several times we were
pretty young at the time 24 and 25 and
the grown-ups in the room so to speak
all seemed to make it very clear that
our only path forward was to sign a
settlement agreement and accept
settlement and go away and never speak
of this again and in order for us to be
able to put through some of the clauses
that we very much wanted to put through
that Harvey should go to therapy that
Miramax should put in place some HR
ombudsman and so on it was suggested to
us that the only way we could get some
of this on the table
was if we agreed to be silenced and to
take to accept a sum of money in order
to never speak of this again
I am actually surprised that we were we
ended up being ushered into a process
where we were negotiating a
non-disclosure we found ourselves
negotiating a non-disclosure agreement
without really stronger suggestion from
either our lawyers or other more senior
people in Miramax that we should go to
the police we seem to be the only people
who suggested that we should go to the
police and we were very much discouraged
from doing so I think the feeling was
really that we wouldn't be believed we
didn't have any physical evidence it was
a case of she said he said she said in a
hotel room in Venice and you know as
I've expressed in my op-ed and it has
been expressed in numerous other
interviews you know we really had very
little power compared to the most
powerful man in Hollywood as he was at
the time but the nature of the
negotiations that you had also sounded
quite extraordinary at one time you were
kept overnight from about 5:00 p.m. to
5:00 a
in negotiations did your lawyers never
say hang on we need to take a break here
well I think the whole process was
pretty intimidating and it was very
difficult to push back I mean there are
other issues also that I you know that
looking back were very difficult we were
escorted to the bathroom at all times we
weren't allowed to make phone calls we
weren't even allowed to keep a pen and
paper and in the end we signed this
incredibly egregious and very difficult
NDA I mean there was no way that this
would boilerplate 30 pages of very
difficult agreements to adhere to and we
weren't allowed to keep a copy of it now
that is not necessarily normal oh no
very much not highly irregular and your
lawyers didn't object
well I think that there was a feeling
that we very much wanted certain clauses
which I had emphasized that that we
wanted to put safeguards in place to
protect other women you know for example
were Harvey to assault anyone else and
to settle with them within two years of
our agreement it would automatically
trigger his resignation from Miramax and
a report to the Walt Disney Company
which is something we very much wanted
in the first place so the feeling was
really that in order for us to put
through the things that we really wanted
we had to give up so certain things as
as with any negotiation but um yeah I
think the clause that we couldn't keep a
copy of the negotiation is actually
particularly difficult to defend I
really don't have anything to say about
that
other than there was a high level of
paranoia from Harvey side and from his
lawyers you know when you look at
certain clauses within the NDA I lost
the clauses go into a great detail about
who we can speak to who we may not speak
to even if there's a court case I
believe there's a provision that says
that if if he ever appeared in court and
you were called as a witness you
supposedly weren't we're supposed to
limit your remarks which seems right or
in fact support in fact use our efforts
to support Harvey side of things I mean
that can't be legal well I think quite a
bit of a nga seems like it couldn't be
legal I would say about the NDA that
it's certainly immoral and unethical
whether or not it's technically illegal
and that's really for the lawyers to
decide I think it takes a while for the
law to catch up I think the way that our
NDA is drafted is certainly not the
original use for NDA's and so that
brings us really into the controversial
murky area of should such NDA's exist
and should moves be made really to
abolish the use of type 20 is that
essentially being used to cover up
crimes yeah
and what led you finally to decide to go
public
it's an incredibly difficult decision I
did not go public in October 2017 when
Jodie and Megan first broke the story
and it was recon chess decision at that
time not to go public with many other
victims I had quite a young family my
youngest child was only six months old
at the time and I really you know
because it's the personal impact on my
family I hadn't really been able to talk
to my own family of origin my parents my
sister hadn't had conversations with my
parents and my sister or friends of mine
from 20 years ago and I think also when
you've maintained it Twitter nearly 20
years silence it's not something that
you break overnight it took a while to
kind of emotionally get to the place
where I thought I'd be ready to come
forward with the story yeah okay sitting
here listening to this you've been
following moves in the UK to persuade
the government here to legislate to
ensure that NDA's can't be used to cover
up harassment and behavior of the sort
that Rowena's experienced what's
actually happened so far well waves of
consultations here from parts of the
government regulatory bodies there
remains a lots of confusion about this
area last year we had the women and
equalities committee look into this and
they found some really distressing
evidence that NGOs were being used
routinely to cover up claims of
harassment and as a way of avoiding
really interrogating and investigating
these discrimination claims so they came
out with a series of recommendations and
a lot of those were around making it an
offence for an NDA or an employer to
stop people from reporting things to the
police and more kind of recommendations
on those lines and now we've had the
BAE's or the Department for business
energy and industrial strategy has also
looked at this and they've come out with
a series of proposed rules or proposed
new laws and those include things like
preventing any NDA from stopping someone
from going to the police from reporting
discrimination to a regulator from you
know stop
people from reporting these things too
so a health care professional or a
therapist for example and they want to
see more enforcement or better
enforcement against NDA's that don't
subscribe to all of those rules but so
far that is really just talk because we
haven't seen any new rules and a lot of
people are calling because that will the
Perkins for example very keen to see
NGOs banned in these cases where they
are just used to cover up harassment but
we haven't seen much progress on that
and that's an area of quite a lot of
debate yeah and do we think that indios
are being used in the UK and perhaps in
other European countries as much as
they've been in the US or any countries
where they seem to be more prevalent
than others or is it something that's
probably just crept up quietly and
there's an in fact very widespread
around the world it's actually very
difficult to know I mean by their nature
and yeas are secretive clauses we just
don't have the data and that's partly
part of the worrying thing here you know
who knows just how many of these have
been signed and for what purpose
a lot of lawyers are saying that what we
really need for companies to have
effectively registers of NGOs that have
been signed so that you can see are
their pockets or the departments where
they are being used time and again you
know arguably for the wrong purposes but
without that data it's very difficult to
move forward and what do you think about
the way in which the lawyers behaved in
Rowena's case I mean her own lawyers as
well as in fact her own lawyers as well
as Ellen's yeah I mean I think a key
thing say here is that we're talking a
lot about the reform of NDA's and I
think in many cases powerful people have
used or abused their confusion around
what is and is not already allowed under
the NDA regime to to abuse the rules
basically but it is very clear when you
speak to most people that it is entirely
wrong to draft any NDA
which would prevent someone from
speaking to a therapist to prevent them
from disclosing that information to
regulators to the police it is entirely
wrong to prevent someone from having a
copy of the agreement that they have
signed and it's also wrong to pressure
or harass someone into signing one of
these so I think it's quite clear that
there have been egregious behaviors here
which most people
considered to be unacceptable under the
current regime yeah yeah really you're
not suggesting that NDA's should be
banned outright I don't think or are you
you know I think this is a very
difficult issue I think one thing that
is often misunderstood about NDA's is
they're frequently requested by the
victim because they feel that they're
mid-career or they have some kind of
reputation to protect or a career path
to maintain and I think that a victim of
sexual assault is often beguiled into
thinking that they can find an NDA and
essentially draw a line under a very
unpleasant experience and move on with
their life I can really only speak
personally certainly at the age of 24 I
thought I was drawing a line and able to
walk away from you know a very
unpleasant chapter in my young life so
far and I can say that over the last 20
years that's obviously been far from the
case it's very difficult to move on
emotionally it was certainly impossible
to find another job in the film industry
and essentially our careers and our
emotionalized were for a long time
derailed after the signing of the NDA so
I think these are repercussions for us
that we couldn't foresee at the time and
having heard from lots of other victims
of sexual harassment who've signed NDA's
sadly my story isn't the only one to
sort of end in that way so whilst I
wouldn't call necessarily for their
outright abolition I think they're very
much needs to be much more regulation
around their way they are used and
certainly I think abolition wouldn't be
too far for the cases where they are
covering up harassment or outright crime
and what do you think hey what's what's
the best way I think we certainly need
new rules about where in the ocean be
used and where they are inappropriate
but I think most of all right now we
need more clarity around what is and is
not allowed under the current rules and
we need more standardization of how
these clauses are drawn up and around
the behavior around that process in
terms of people taking independent legal
advice being given the time to digest
these things and being given copies of
the agreement for example so I think
there's quite a lot that we could
already do without even the need for
more legislation but I also think that
we definitely need more transparency
around the way that they're being used
currently things like these company
registers and we need more information
about their use and abuse yeah and would
you agree reasonable yeah I think for
the victims it's you know it's difficult
enough as it is to kind of understand
you're already under a very stressful
situation and so it's not up to the
victim really to understand how NDA's
can or cannot be used so much more
education needs to happen on the part of
the lawyers so that they can advise you
know victims of sexual assault properly
mmm and I think actually we also need
much better enforcement's in terms of
avoiding NDA's that that have been drawn
up in in the wrong kind of settings or
in the wrong way well that's actually a
really interesting point I mean so that
would actually allow people who've
signed them to come forward and attempt
to have them voided in a court well I
mean it would be very difficult and this
is something under debate I think it
probably would be the case that any new
law would not be retrospective it would
probably mean that we would have new
legislation setting out the rules and
the parameters around NDA's and then you
would have enforcement of those NDA's
going forward which would prevent people
who had been designing them in the wrong
circumstances but I think a lot of
people will be left feeling very
concerned about all of the people who
might have signed them in the past and
in settings where that's been abused
yeah yeah and just finally ruined I
suppose it you know for anyone listening
to this if they've ever had anything
remotely like the experiences that
you've been through what would be your
advice to them now I think is a it's
difficult to generalize about that
because everyone has every in the fields
of sexual assault
everyone has their own deeply personal
deeply traumatizing experiences I think
that you know it's a sort of very
individual journey whether or not to
speak out and I don't think that we can
certainly I don't feel I can judge
whether someone remain silent or is
prepared to speak out I think if you are
assigned an NDA and you're on the verge
of breaking it and you want to come out
with your story
I would definitely say get your ducks in
a row with lining up your own personal
support system you know make sure that
things are squared away with with your
family you know I made sure I wanted to
make sure that things were squared away
with my husband and my children and my
family of origin before I spoke out
because the impact it could be much more
devastating than then then you could
imagine both you know that I think that
it's complicated whether you remain
silent that's devastating in its own way
but also even if you come forward with
your story that creates another burden
that you didn't carry when you were
silent in the sense that once the story
is out in the public
it grows legs and it's no longer
necessarily know you can't necessarily
manage it so that has its own precious
yeah
Rowena - thank you so much for telling
your story and KP early thank you very
much -
you