Harvey Weinstein said his actions were “stupid” and “immoral” but “never criminal” or illegal in a phone interview with Fox 5’s “Good Day New York” on Friday.
The producer gave the interview while he waits on the verdict in a rape and sexual assault retrial in Manhattan. Weinstein, when asked by Rosanna Scotto if he had any regrets about his actions, admitted he feels bad for his family and friends, but insisted he has done nothing to warrant being locked up.
“I have regrets that I put my family through this, that I put my wife through this, acted immorally, you know,” he shared. “I put so many friends through this … hurt people that were close to me by actions that were stupid, but never illegal, never criminal.”
Weinstein also said his health is “not good” and that his “list of ailments [is] longer than an encyclopedia,” including spinal stenosis and bone marrow cancer. However, he said he is compelled to clear his name for both himself and his family.
“I have to fight,” Weinstein said. “I have to, you know, I have to live for my children. I have to do that.”
Weinstein’s Friday interview came just two days after a panel of seven women and five men began deliberating his fate, as New York prosecutors wrapped their rape and sexual assault case. The jury’s verdict could definitively decide whether he spends the rest of his life in prison.
A not-guilty verdict would automatically send Weinstein back to California, where he was convicted on three counts of sexual assault in December 2022 and sentenced to 16 years. That verdict is under an appeal of the same nature that got his 2022 New York conviction thrown out, sparking the Manhattan retrial.
But a guilty verdict would likely mean that the now-73-year-old Weinstein, who has repeatedly complained of dire health problems at the notorious Rikers Island prison, will die in prison. The California sentence is to be served consecutively — only after a potential New York sentence is expired.
When asked by Scotto on Friday what he thought of the women who have testified against him, Weinstein said they are driven by money. The producer noted his attorney in the retrial, Arthur L. Aidala, has “said they have 4 million reasons to testify, as in dollars.”
