When Jessica Mann met film producer Harvey Weinstein at a Hollywood party in 2013, she thought that " God [him] was sending his blessing ". The young woman had "Gave a lot to go to Hollywood". She had left her hometown in Washington State where she had been raised with respect for the Protestant religion and had fallen out with her father.
The "blessing" has turned into a nightmare, as the young woman, now 34, told the Manhattan court on Friday, January 31, during the trial of the ousted film producer, prosecuted for rape and sexual assault serial.
This poignant testimony, of a testing crudeness, made it possible to understand the system of grip of Harvey Weinstein.
Jessica Mann compared it to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde". Dr. Jekyll, it was this elderly man – then in his sixties – whom she met at a party without recognizing him. Harvey Weinstein asks him for his phone number, sets him up at a bookstore on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where he gives him four books because he was "Extremely important to understand the history of cinema if she wanted to be an actress". Jessica Mann is in her own words "Thrilled to have met the Hollywood guru", even if it assures the prosecutor not to be sexually or sentimentally drawn to Weinstein.
"I simulated an orgasm to get out of it"
She is fearlessly going to dinner at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. When a man interrupts the meal to congratulate Weinstein on his productions, he becomes angry and uses this as an excuse to ask the waiter to bring dinner up to the room. Jessica Mann doesn't feel like it, but she wants to help Weinstein escape this celebrity pressure.
Barely arrived in the room, Weinstein wants to give her a massage, she refuses, but she ends up giving one to the producer, who found himself shirtless by a sleight of hand, but with his fingertips, on his back to damaged skin and full of blackheads: "He made me feel stupid, I explained to him that I was not sexually comfortable with someone I did not know. "
The incident is over, Jessica Mann receives invitations from Weinstein to premieres or parties, is offered a dress. Then she's invited to a friend who introduced her to the producer at a Beverly Hills hotel to talk about their future acting careers. He compliments the aspiring actress, explains that she is "Prettier than Natalie Portman". The scheme is repeated, he invites the two young women in his suite. "With my friend, I thought there was nothing to fear", she explained to the court.