Zelda Perkins, Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant at Miramax Films, has broken her non-disclosure agreement in an interview with the Financial Times.
Perkins, who worked for Weinstein when he ran Miramax Films starting in the late 1990s, is the first former staffer break her NDA by going public with accusations against the disgraced mogul.
“I want to publicly break my non-disclosure agreement,” she said, detailing alleged sexual harassment she endured at the hands of Weinstein.
Like other accusers, Perkins said the disgraced mogul disrobed in front of her, requested massages and asked that she watch him take a bath. “This was his behavior on every occasion I was alone with him. I often had to wake him up in the hotel in the mornings and he would try to pull me into bed,” she said.
Her breaking point came, she said, when one of her colleagues was assaulted by Weinstein 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 Perkins.
Perkins and her colleague sought counsel from Simons Muirhead & Burton, a London-based law firm. They entered into negotiations with international law firm Allen & Overy. Both sides agreed upon a settlement reported to be £250,000 that was to be split between both women. They signed the contract in October 1998.
Perkins hasn’t spoken about Weinstein since and added: “I want other women who have been sidelined and who aren’t being allowed to own their own history or their trauma to be able to discuss what they have suffered. I want them to see that the sky won’t fall in.”
Weinstein denied the accusations to the Financial Times through a spokesperson: “The FT did not provide the identity of any individuals making these assertions. Any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein. Mr Weinstein has further confirmed that there were never any acts of retaliation against any women for refusing his advances.”