She couldn't finish her sentence. Her voice, so frail that it is difficult to hear it, suddenly changed into a sob. With his face buried in his hands, Miriam Haleyi was silent for a few moments, before raising her head, her eyes full of tears. “He kept me on the bed, he supported me with his hands, repeating: stay, stay ! I said to myself: you are being raped ... ”
Thirteen years later, the pain and shame seem intact. Called to testify this Monday at the trial of Harvey Weinstein, the producer told the New York court how the Hollywood tycoon, whom she accuses of having abused her, patiently wove his web, and finally used the violence to achieve its ends.
The episode dates back to the summer of 2006. Young English producer looking for work, Miriam Haleyi was 29 years old and all confidence in this man whom her former boss had presented to her, two years earlier, at the London premiere. from the movie "Aviator". In May, at the Cannes Film Festival, and while she is preparing to move to New York, it is therefore quite natural that she requests an interview. But he suddenly takes an embarrassing turn when Harvey Weinstein asks him for a massage…
When Weinstein gives him the big game
"Humiliated", she refuses, assuming to offend the producer. A few days later, however, he made her a job offer, which she accepted. When they see each other the next month in New York, Harvey Weinstein is "charming, respectful, kind", insists on taking her home. There, he suddenly urged her to accompany him to Paris to attend a fashion show. The producer takes out the big game for him: trip in a private jet, nights at the Ritz… Miriam Haleyi politely declines.
All day he harasses her with phone calls. Then come back home in person. "He was very insistent, he almost begged me ...", she says. At the foot of the building, the young woman tries to drive her away, but Harvey Weinstein notices an open door in the hallway - his own - jostles him, and invites himself into his apartment. A story that echoes that delivered Thursday by actress Annabella Sciorra, one of the six women who will be heard as a witness in the trial.
Miriam Haleyi, short of arguments to make him leave, then launched him: "I heard that you had a very bad reputation with women. The young Englishwoman hits the bull's eye: Weinstein, stung in the heat, retreats. She thinks the incident is finally over, and accepts, a few days later, an appointment at the producer's home. But very quickly, the latter tries to kiss her, begins to "fiddle".
"I don't even know if someone would have heard me if I had shouted"
"I kept telling her: no, no, no ," she explains. I pushed him away while stepping back, I even told him that I had my period. " Nothing works. Weinstein leads her into a room, places her on a bed, removes her tampon and imposes cunnilingus on her. "He was holding my wrists," she says in a sob. I don't even know if someone would have heard me if I had shouted… ”, she regrets.
A few days later, Harvey Weinstein, angry after she hadn't come to a preview in Los Angeles, asked to see her and sent her a car. "He insisted again ... I thought I could regain the advantage. I wanted to keep in good touch with him, ”she explains, before bursting into tears again. "I didn't think he would do it again ..." she cries. As soon as she enters, the producer pulls her towards the bed and enters her, calling her a "whore" and a "drag".
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"He must have thought it turned me on." And I was lying there, as if paralyzed, telling myself that I was neither a whore nor a streak, ”remembers the producer. "Do you feel guilty?" Asked the prosecutor, who, while qualifying the event as rape, did not hold him against the producer, probably because of the lack of physical struggle. " Yes. The first incident was deeply embarrassing, but I had nothing to blame myself for. It was different there, ”says Miriam Haleyi. If convicted, Harvey Weinstein faces life in prison.
