Melissa Thompson claims she was raped by Harvey Weinstein in 2011. Today, Sky News published a video shot by Ms. Thompson just hours before the alleged attack. Thompson had set up a meeting with Weinstein’s company at their offices. She was there to pitch a new start-up video-analytic service. Thompson began recording the meeting and was surprised when Weinstein himself showed up and immediately locked the door to the office behind him.
Ms Thompson offers a handshake, Weinstein pushes her hand out of the way and hugs her, running his hands up and down her back and murmuring “that’s nice, let’s keep it up”.
Weinstein sits down and asks: “So am I allowed to flirt with you?”
Ms Thompson replies: “Ummm we’ll see, a little bit.”
But Weinstein’s behavior quickly escalates from a hug to putting his hand up her skirt:
He reaches down under the table, out of view of the camera, where Melissa says he ran his hand up her leg under her dress.
On the video he says: “Let me have a little part of you. Give it to me. It’s okay, would you like to do it some more?
She replies: “A little bit… a little high, that’s a little high, that’s a little high.”
Throughout the meeting, Thompson is clearly trying to stick to her pitch even as Weinstein is running his hands on her arms. She told Sky News, “I worked in Wall Street before I went to business school, and I worked in an environment that was heavily male dominated… I thought I could handle it, I had never met anyone that I couldn’t handle… until Harvey Weinstein.”
At the end of the meeting, Thompson and Weinstein made arrangements to meet at a nearby hotel lobby later that night. She thought that would be safer since it was a public space. But she says when she met Weinstein around 10 pm, he asked her to follow him and led her straight up to his private room. That’s where Thompson says Weinstein raped her.
The video hasn’t been posted on YouTube yet but you can view it here at Sky News. Back in June, Thompson gave this interview to NBC News in which she mentions the video and even offered NBC a screengrab from it.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member