This afternoon, I opened Instagram on my phone. What I saw made my skin crawl.
A black and white photo of convicted sex offender Harvey Weinstein staring back at me, with a headline in all capitals reading: ‘The Rikers Interview.’
I was horrified. I couldn’t believe that any publication, let alone one as highly regarded as The Hollywood Reporter, would speak to a man so disgraced, so deplorable, and so rightfully shunned from the industry in which he made his name.
I know that there is a lot of irony in writing about an interview that I don’t believe should have taken place.
But in my job as an entertainment journalist, it wasn’t something that I felt I could ignore. I clicked the link to find the full-length interview on THR’s website, and as I scrolled down, reading with a furrowed brow, I could feel my blood quickly approaching boiling point.
I don’t know what I expected to come from this interview. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Weinstein was basically crying ‘Woe is me’, lamenting his legacy being tarnished and many of his former A-list Hollywood friends cutting off contact with him.
But in the year 2026, just a couple of days after International Women’s Day, I struggled to maintain my composure at my desk reading the comments that he made just two months ago from prison.
This interview took place in January, with THR editor-in-chief Maer Roshan travelling to Rikers Island in New York, where Weinstein is incarcerated.
A couple of things are abundantly clear in this interview. Firstly, Weinstein seemed to think it went very well. ‘You gotta get this out soon,’ Weinstein told interviewer Maer Roshan as he was being wheeled out of the room.
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It’s giving Prince Andrew vibes after his Emily Maitlis sit-down, when he apparently felt that everything had gone swimmingly.
And secondly, the 73-year-old seems to have a tenuous relationship with accountability. He’s at pains to stress that he’s very sorry for cheating on his wives (both of them) and he apologises to the women who brought charges against him ‘generally’, saying: ‘I shouldn’t have been with them in the first place. I misled them.’
But he also denies that he’s a rapist, or that he sexually assaulted any woman. He instead tries to claim that he was some sort of lothario who flirted a bit too much, despite more than 100 women making allegations against him.
‘Did I make a pass at some of these women unsuccessfully? Did I overplay my hand? Yes. Was I pushy or overly seductive? Yes to all of that. Look, I should never have gone out with the people I went out with. I was married to a fantastic woman who had no idea what I was doing. I lied all the time. I improperly used my staff to hide these things. But did I ever sexually assault a woman? No. I never did that,’ he said.
In 2023, Weinstein was sentenced to 16 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. He’s continued to deny the allegations.
He’d previously been convicted in 2020 on charges of a criminal sex act in the first degree and rape in the third degree, with a sentence of 23 years in prison, but this conviction was overturned four years later.
The 2025 retrial ended in a mixed verdict. He was found guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree against one woman, and acquitted on a sexual assault charge involving another woman. The third charge resulted in a mistrial.
A lot has been said about how Weinstein managed to dodge allegations and silence his accusers, and the people who enabled him in doing so. At one point, Roshan asked him: ‘You mentioned that your staff helped cover for you. Some of them walked young women to your room, fully knowing what was awaiting them there. Don’t they deserve some accountability for that?’
What to do if you've been raped
If you have been the victim of rape, either recently or historically, and are looking for help, support is out there.
- If you have recently been raped and you are still at risk, ring 999 and ask for the police. Otherwise, the first step is to go somewhere you are safe.
- If you want to report your rape to the police, ring 999 or the police non-emergency line on 101. An Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ISVA) will often be on hand to help you through reporting and even after you have made a statement, you can still decide to withdraw from the criminal justice process at any time.
- If you plan on going to the police, if possible, do not wash your clothes or shower, bathe or brush your teeth. If you do get changed, keep the clothes you were wearing in a plastic bag. These steps will help to preserve any DNA evidence your attacker may have left on your body or clothes.
- If you don’t want to contact the police, Rape Crisis suggest talking to someone you trust about what has happened; or you can ring one of the UK’s many rape and sexual assault helplines.
- Anyone aged 16+ can contact Rape Crisis's 24/7 Support Line by calling 0808 500 2222 or starting an online chat.
- If you have been injured, you’re best advised to go to your nearest A&E to seek medical treatment. If you are uninjured, you can go to your nearest Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC). The NHS has information on where to find your nearest centre here.
- If your rape is historic, you can still access support, including from the police – there is no time limit on reporting and your account can still be used as evidence.
Read more here.
He began his answer by stating: ‘No. There’s only one person who’s to blame. That’s me… It’s all on me.’ But rather than leave it at that, he caveated, ‘I will say, though, when a guy invites you to his hotel room in the middle of the night, you know what’s on the agenda.’
No. A woman has a right to say no to a man’s advances at any point. As we’ve all heard since the MeToo movement sparked tidal waves around the world, there were young women in the industry who felt as though they had no choice but to accept invitations to hotel rooms for meetings, lest they hinder their chances of advancing in their careers.
This does not mean that they were aware or accepted that they were going to be subjected to sexual advances. There’s never an excuse.
According to Weinstein, actresses like Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie are part of a ‘club’ that wanted to destroy him. No, Weinstein. You destroyed yourself.
There has been so much progress since the MeToo movement began, but there is still so much more to make. People criticising the fact that this interview exists have every right to do so.
One thing that I do take away from it, aside from poker-hot fury, is that Weinstein hasn’t learnt from his fall from grace whatsoever, almost a decade after accusations first appeared in The New York Times and The New Yorker.
For all that I didn’t know what to expect from this interview when I began reading it, upon reflection, I should have known not to expect any better.
Not from this unrepentant monster.
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