Los Angeles: A former assistant of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has broken her non- disclosure agreement to shed light on how the film mogul took the help of a network of lawyers to silence the women he sexually harassed or assaulted.
Zelda Perkins, who worked as Weinstein's assistant in Miramax's London office two decades ago, told Financial Times that Weinstein also sexually harassed her for years.
She ultimately decided to quit after Weinstein assaulted her colleague. Afterwards, both the women went to a lawyer, who suggested they settle the matter.
"I want to publicly break my non-disclosure agreement," said Perkins, who together with her colleague received a sum of 250,000 pounds after signing a strict non-disclosure
agreement.
"Unless somebody does this there won't be a debate about how egregious these agreements are and the amount of duress that victims are put under. My entire world fell in because I thought the law was there to protect those who abided by it. I discovered that it had nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with money and power," she added.
Narrating her experience, Perkins said that it happened when she was alone with Weinstein in a room.
"He went out of the room and came back in his underwear. He asked me if I would give him a massage. Then he asked if he could massage me," said Perkins, adding that
Weinstein would often walk around the room naked and asked her to be in the room while he had a bath.
She quit after Weinstein assaulted her colleague during the Venice Film Festival in 1998.
"She was white as a sheet and shaking and in a very bad emotional state. She told me something terrible had happened. She was in shock and crying and finding it very hard to talk. I was furious, deeply upset and very shocked. I said: 'We need to go to the police' but she was too distressed.
Neither of us knew what to do in a foreign environment," said Perki
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