Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein whined that former friend Gwyneth Paltrow “stabbed” him in the back with her sexual harassment claims — and recalled being confronted by her then-fiancé Brad Pitt after he asked the star for a massage.
“This person who was a friend, who owes her career to me, just stabs me in the back,” Weinstein, 73, told the Hollywood Reporter of Paltrow in a raging interview from his Rikers Island prison cell.
“She wanted to be part of the crowd. I won’t forgive her for that,” he added.
Paltrow, 53, was one of more than 100 women to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment after a bombshell 2017 New York Times exposé unleashed a torrent of similar allegations against the film producer — leading to both his imprisonment and the worldwide #MeToo movement.
She was a rising star in the mid-1990s when Weinstein allegedly grabbed her and offered to go to a hotel bedroom for massages — an incident that left her so rattled that she confided in her then-fiancé Brad Pitt about what happened.
But Weinstein — who has previously brushed off the encounter — insisted that Paltrow made “a big deal over nothing.”
“I walked out of a nice meeting with her and said, ‘How about a massage?’ And she just went, ‘No, I don’t think so.’ I got the message. I never put my hands on her,” he said. “She told Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt came to me and said, ‘Don’t do anything like that with my girl.’ I said ‘Don’t worry, Brad. I got it.’
“But then Gwyneth goes on Howard Stern and The New York Times and makes a big deal about it all. She knows that nothing happened,” Weinstein added. “This person who was a friend, who owes her career to me, just stabs me in the back.”
Weinstein has been accused of sexual misconduct by more 100 women — allegations which resulted in 2020 rape convictions and a 23-year New York prison sentence, along with a 16-year sentence for convictions in Los Angeles.
But he successfully appealed his New York conviction, and will be returning to court in April for a retrial.
And he maintains that he’s innocent, telling the Hollywood Reporter that he’d one day be exonerated — and that numerous actresses wanted to be “part of the club” and faked allegations against him.
“Rose McGowan, Rosanna Arquette, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie — they just exaggerated,” Weinstein said. “They wanted to be victims. They wanted to be part of the club. And they destroyed me.”