Megyn Kelly opened her show Monday with a tour-de-force interview with Lauren Sivan, a television reporter who came forward on Friday to accuse Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct.
“He immediately exposed himself, and began pleasuring himself and I just stood there dumbfounded,” Sivan told Kelly after breaking her silence to journalist Yashar Ali over the weekend. “I was so shocked. I could not believe what I was witnessing. It was disgusting and kind of pathetic really.”
In a tense retelling of an encounter she said happened a decade ago, Sivan described how Weinstein had lured her into the kitchen of Cafe Socialista, a restaurant he owned in New York, blocked the door, and masturbated in front of her.
“He cornered me in this vestibule. He leaned in and tried to kiss me, which I immediately rebuffed, and said, ‘Wow wow wow, I had no idea what this was. I’m sorry, I have a very serious boyfriend and I am not interested,’ and I thought it would end there,” she said. “But that’s when he blocked the entrance, or exit for me. and said, ‘Well then just stand there and be quiet.’ And that’s when I realized.”
Kelly is no stranger to the subject. While a star anchor at Fox News, she reported to investigators that then-CEO Roger Ailes had sexually harassed her and helped put an end to his career at the network.
According to a bombshell report from the New York Times last Thursday, Weinstein has settled sexual harassment suits with at least eight different women over the course of his decades-long career.
“More than the disgusting act itself, which, of course, was gross, the demeaning part of it all, that just 20 minutes earlier he was having this great conversation with me,” said Sivan. “He finished and I said, ‘Can I go now?’ And he said, ‘Yes, let’s go let’s both go.’”