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Harvey Weinstein bullied Oprah

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Updated on April 2, 2021

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In a wide-ranging interview with Gwyneth Paltrow released Thursday, Oprah Winfrey explored some of her previous experiences with disgraced executive Harvey Weinstein.

Weinstein exerted pressure on Winfrey to have certain guests on her long-running talk show, she remembered.

“What I knew was Harvey was a bully. Was I friendly with Harvey? Yes, I was friendly with Harvey. Of course, I didn’t know any of this was going on ,” she confessed to Gwyneth Paltrow, one of Weinstein’s accusers, in the first episode of the Goop podcast, which was launched on Thursday. Although Winfrey insists that the producer did not sexually assault her, she claims that he used to phone her and insist that the stars of his films feature on talk shows.

“I think where this movement will eventually lead us to is not accepting any kind of behavior that disparages you as a human being. Why am I willing to put up with an asshole? Not only am I not going to take your sexual harassment, I’m not going to take any of your bullshit, period ,” Winfrey said of her expectations for the #MeToo movement’s potential.

“Knowing that you’re not alone is a part of the big healing. I remember the first time I realized that I wasn’t the only kid who had been sexually molested. The first time I realized it, I was doing a talk show where somebody was telling their story. I was dumbfounded. I don’t know what to do. That somebody, that is my story. I could cry right now. I was like, that’s happened to someone else? I thought I was the only one. At the first time I heard it, I was in Baltimore and I didn’t have the courage to speak out on television about it ,” she told Paltrow on the Goop podcast about her own sexual harassment encounter.

In the wake of the #MeToo campaign, Winfrey said she is “proud of where we are and what we’re doing,” thanking all the people who have been abused or attacked but have remained unheard.
“There are those who endured, suffered and didn’t speak, because they couldn’t speak, because they knew to speak meant ‘I won’t be able to feed my children,'” Winfrey said.
She went on to say that she believes this period in history, where women’s voices will be understood, leads to positive progress.