Harvey Weinstein in New York City in 2020.
A woman who was in Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights testified Thursday that Harvey Weinstein assaulted her while they were in Puerto Rico for filming in 2003, masturbating on her face and breasts in an attack enabled by Weinstein’s personal assistant.
Not identified in court by her full name, the woman returned to the witness stand this morning as the first witness to testify about “prior bad acts” by Weinstein, a legal term describing sexual assault accusers who are not included as victims in the formal criminal charges.
“He just said it’s OK, it’s not like we’re having sex. And then he ejaculated on me, on my breasts and some on my face,” Ashley testified Thursday. “I was just really thankful that I wasn’t raped. I remember thinking and I remember wiping off just getting dressed really fast and leaving really fast.”
Ashley said she was a ballerina from a young age and toured with the American Ballet Theatre before auditioning for Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights.
“Basically my whole life was dancing. Growing up I did ballet, I did homeschool, but to keep up with dancing you had to dance every day and just really work at it,” she said.
She secured a role as a body double dancer in the film, a follow up to “Dirty Dancing,” produced by Weinstein’s Miramax Films, and met Weinstein after traveling to Puerto Rico for filming. She was 22 and traveling by herself, and she testified Thursday that she quickly began trying to think of a way out of the situation when Weinstein began discussing “naked massaging.” Weinstein said he’d done things like a “naked massage” with actress Gwyneth Paltrow and it would be good for her career, she testified Thursday.
“I’m supposed to be on set, which I was … so I thought I would just be able to go on set,” Ashley testified. “He replied saying, ‘I’m the one in charge here they all answer to me.'” She described Weinstein as “aggressive” and said his demeanor “scared” her.
“I was scared of, like, what was gonna happen,” she testified, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. She said she felt isolated in Puerto Rico, having never been there before and not having a car. She said Weinstein told her he’d be waiting to take her to the hotel, and she called her fiancé and mother to tell them she was afraid.
“They both instructed me to talk to the producers or the choreographers,” she testified. She said she talked to both the choreographer and the producer, but neither helped her and she continued feeling “freaked out.” But when she say Weinstein at the entrance to the set, he had someone with her who made her feel better: Bonnie Hung, his personal assistant.
“At that point I felt better just knowing that I wasn’t alone,” she said. But Weinstein’s domineering demeanor continued, she said, with a verbal order he gave her still ringing in her head nearly 20 years later.
“‘Walk to Bonnie and get in the car.’ For some reason, I always have that in my head,” Ashley testified.
“I gave her a look like, ‘Can you help me?’ with my eyes, and she looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the entire time. He just wants to talk about future projects,'” she said. “This girl is looking me right in the eye and I’m not alone and I felt more at ease.”
Asked why she got into the car with Weinstein and Hung instead of returning to the set, Ashley said it was because “nobody else was going to help me” and Weinstein had said he was in charge. The conversation in the car was about future projects, but to Ashley’s surprised, they ended up at a hotel, though she said Hung’s presence still made her feel at ease.
“If Bonnie hadn’t have been there I would have been freaking out but I felt more at ease because Bonnie was there,” Ashley testified. But then she and Weinstein entered a room “then Bonnie shut the door behind us” and Bonnie remained outside.
Ashley said she thought to herself: “Oh no. What do I do?”
“Harvey began to get aggressive and he eventually, like, shoved me on the bed,” she testified Thursday. “He was just saying a bunch of stuff and he shoved me and he ended up taking off my top and my clothes, my bra.”
As Weinstein sat stoically at the defense table, resting his hand on his chin, Ashley recalled him telling her, “It’s not like we’re having sex, it’s just naked cuddling.”
“I just remember in my head thinking, ‘What do I do? Should I make a run for it?’ But I knew that he was just really big and I knew Bonnie was most likely out there so I didn’t know what to do,” she said. She said she was “hysterical” and crying, and Weinstein began straddling her as he “ripped off my top and bra” before taking off his clothes and masturbating. DA Martinez asked about Weinstein’s deformed genitalia, and the woman answered, “From the angle where he was, his stomach was out so I couldn’t see it as well from the angle of being … I just saw the motion of his hand.”
Ashley testified that she tried to struggle but couldn’t do much with Weinstein on top of her. When she left the hotel room, she saw Hung “right at the front of the door.” She said she was “still hysterical, crying” but Hung “just stood there” holding her clipboard and didn’t make eye contact with her. Ashley testified that she remained hysterical during the drive from the hotel and later called her mother and fiancee. But she didn’t tell anyone on the movie set about the attack.
“I felt that at that time everyone was afraid of their career and stuff. Nobody helped me at the dinner so why would they help me now?” she asked.
Ashely’s testimony followed witnesses prosecutors called to support Jane Doe 1’s testimony. They included Weinstein’s former limousine driver, Alfred “Freddie” Baroth, and Alexandra De Lara, who was at Mr. C’s Hotel the night Jane Doe 1 says Weinstein sexually assaulted her in February 2013 while she was in Los Angeles for the Los Angeles Italia Film Festival. De Lara worked for a luxury skin care brand and was in Los Angeles for an event at the hotel. She testified Thursday she remembers being “woken up in the middle of the night by what sounded like an argument.”
“It sounded like a verbal argument to me. It was close enough that it woke me up but I would say it was either above me or on the same floor as me,” De Lara testified. “I remember looking in the hallway to see if I could see where it was coming from but that was all I did.”
This article was compiled from a pool report organized by The Associated Press. Thursday’s reports were by James Queally of the Los Angeles Times.
[Image: JOHANNES EISELE_AFP via Getty Images]
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