Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary film-maker and the wife of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has taken the stand at the rape trial of Harvey Weinstein, becoming the most prominent woman so far to testify against the former Hollywood producer.
Siebel Newsom wept repeatedly as she testified about meeting Weinstein at a hotel for what she thought was a business meeting when she was a young actor, and being shocked when he suddenly returned wearing only a bathrobe and started groping her, despite her protests, eventually pulling her into a bedroom and assaulting her.
“I’m trembling. I’m like a rock. I’m frigid. This is my worst nightmare,” Siebel Newsom said. “He was just so big and so determined … This was hell.”
She described each stage of the alleged rape in graphic detail, including her disgust at Weinstein’s body and fear he would give her a disease.
At the time, Siebel Newsom was a young working actor with only a few small roles in film and television, and Weinstein “was like the kingmaker, he was the top of the industry”.
Siebel Newsom described the producer’s employees disappearing from the hotel room and Weinstein re-emerging wearing only a robe and beginning to grope her. Siebel Newsom said she told him “Please don’t, please don’t,” and searched for an exit.Even as she was trying to get away from Weinstein, the young actor tried to make sure she was being “gracious”, she testified.
“I was also trying to just be gracious and not be angry,” she said. “I was just delicately trying to move away from him.”
Siebel Newsom testified that Weinstein eventually either dragged or carried her into a bedroom and assaulted her with his fingers, penis and mouth, and that she felt “like a blow-up doll” during the attack. She said she eventually touched his penis, believing he would not stop until he was satisfied.
“He was so determined, just so scary,” she said. “So I just did it to make it stop.”
In the immediate aftermath of the alleged rape, Siebel Newsom testified, she told no one. “I felt tremendous shame,” she said. Weinstein “had taken a piece of me”.
More than 90 women have publicly accused Weinstein of rape, sexual assault or sexual misconduct, including powerful A-list actors such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie. But none of the women who have previously testified in criminal trials against Weinstein in New York and Los Angeles have had anywhere near the prominence of Siebel Newsom, an accomplished film-maker whose partner recently sailed to a second term as governor of the nation’s most populous state and could eventually make a White House run.
Siebel Newsom is the fourth woman to testify about an alleged rape or sexual assault committed by Weinstein in California. The other accusers in the Los Angeles trial, including an Italian actress visiting Los Angeles for a film festival, and a celebrity masseuse, described similar assaults in luxury hotels around the city.
Weinstein has denied all charges. New York’s highest court has agreed to hear an appeal of his 2020 criminal conviction on similar charges there, which resulted in a 23-year prison sentence.
Weinstein’s defense took an aggressive stance toward Siebel Newsom in opening statements last month, with defense attorney Mark Werksman accusing her of presenting herself as a #MeToo victim to avoid being “just another bimbo who slept with Harvey Weinstein to get ahead in Hollywood”.
Siebel Newsom’s attorney, Elizabeth Fegan, called the remarks “insulting” in an interview with Variety, and said it appeared that Weinstein’s team was “going to try and win based on drama and attacking the victims, as opposed to based on the evidence”.
The choice to label the first partner of California as a “bimbo” was “a measure of Weinstein’s desperation”, said Susan Estrich, a feminist attorney and legal scholar at the University of Southern California.
Siebel Newsom first publicly accused Weinstein of misconduct in a Huffington Post essay in October 2017, the day after a New York Times investigation made public multiple allegations against him, and several days before multiple powerful A-list actors also went on the record with their accusations against him.
The New York Times’ report of Weinstein inviting women to hotels for business meetings that unexpectedly became sexual was “disturbing”, she wrote, but “Not all that shocking because very similar things happened to me.”
Her testimony on Monday, just days after her husband was re-elected as governor of California, was the most detailed public account she has given so far of what happened during the meeting with Weinstein, an encounter that she wrote was one of the inspirations for her later 2011 documentary film Miss Representation, which tackles the objectification of women in American media and culture.
In cross-examination, a defense attorney for Weinstein questioned Siebel Newsom about a donation Weinstein later made to her now-husband’s political campaign, and the email communications she had with him in the years after the alleged assault, including a 2007 email to him asking for advice dealing with the media when she was dating her husband, who was then mayor of San Francisco.
Siebel Newsom’s testimony was tense and emotional from the beginning, and she described still being burdened by recurring memories of the assault. “I’ve been waking up with nightmares for the past month,” she testified.
In court on Monday, when asked by a prosecutor if she saw the person in court that she met at a Toronto film festival in 2005, Siebel Newsom went silent then burst into tears before managing to mutter “yes” into the microphone.
“He’s wearing a suit, and a blue tie, and he’s staring at me,” she said when asked to describe him.
The governor accompanied his wife to the courthouse, but the court did not allow him to enter the courtroom for her testimony, a Newsom adviser told the Los Angeles Times.
Siebel Newsom is known as Jane Doe 4 at the trial, and like the others, Weinstein is charged with raping or sexually assaulting, her name is not being spoken in court. But both the prosecution and the defense have identified her as the governor’s wife during the trial, and Siebel Newsom’s attorney confirmed to the Associated Press and other news outlets that she is Jane Doe 4.
Actor Daphne Zuniga, star of Spaceballs and Melrose Place, testified about her friend Siebel Newsom at the trial last week.
Zuniga said she and Siebel Newsom were on a hike when she told her she had had a meeting with Harvey Weinstein. When asked how it went, Zuniga said Siebel Newsom told her: “Not good, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I always had known her to be positive, upbeat, looks you in the eye, lovely energy,” Zuniga said, but here “she seemed upset, squirmy, agitated”.
Estrich, the law professor, said that Siebel Newsom deserved credit “for having the courage to stand up”.
“Even the first lady can feel the stigma of being a rape victim,” Estrich said. “I think she’s tried not to make a political issue out of it, but she’s doing her duty as a woman, and as a citizen, to stand up against conduct she believes was wrong and should not be allowed.”
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 802 9999. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html