A former actress broke down on the stand on Monday as she described to jurors how Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted her twice in almost two decades in Toronto—shining a light about his alleged pattern of predatory behavior and level of influence in Hollywood.
The woman, identified in court as Kelly S. but whose lawyer confirmed that she is fine being identified by her full name, Kelly Sipherd, told Los Angeles Superior Court jurors that she was lured into Weinstein’s Four Seasons Hotel room in Toronto under the guise of seeing his latest script. Instead, the then 24-year-old aspiring actress found Weinstein only wearing an unbuttoned shirt and holding a hot cloth before he forcibly performed oral sex on her, inserted his fingers into her vagina, and put his penis in her vagina “for a few seconds.”
“At that point I was kind of frozen…I was just asking him to stop. No, stop it, what are you doing,” Kelly S. told jurors about the 1991 assault, which she said left her “nauseous, scared and terrified.”
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When she tried to reach for his back to escape, she said it was “mountainous with acne.” Seventeen years later, in 2008, she said that Weinstein masturbated in front of her in another room at the same hotel—before ejaculating “orange stern [that] didn’t look normal.”
“It went from what felt like he was listening to me to wanting to have sex with me. Demanding it. Grabbing at me,” she said on Monday about the second assault. “It took me a while to grasp what had even happened. It was not your average moment.”
The 53-year-old marked the third woman to take the stand against Weinstein in his sex-crimes trial. Weinstein, 70, who has pleaded guilty to several charges, including rape, allegedly sexually assaulted five Los Angeles women between 2003 and 2014. In addition to the five women at the crux of the criminal case against the former Hollywood producer, prosecutors also plan to call several women to the stand as “prior bad act witnesses”—including Kelly S.—to prove Weinstein’s pattern of behavior.
Weinstein’s legal team, however, has argued that these women who take the stand are liars who had “transactional” sex with their client. During opening statements, Weinstein’s lawyer also told jurors that the women were liars who are now making up stories against Weinstein because they are embarrassed they used him for their own professional gain.
But Kelly S. did not hold back as she detailed to jurors the two horrifying experiences she had with Weinstein that she said “derailed” her career. She explained that she was introduced to Weinstein at a film festival party in 1991 while she was mingling with other friends.
Eventually, she said that Weinstein mentioned a role for her and said he wanted to show her a script—a proposition that prompted the “pretty ambitious” aspiring actress to agree to go to his hotel. She said that when she arrived in the room, however, a naked Weinstein was “fast, aggressive, purposeful” and took her shirt off before putting a hot cloth on her vagina.
“My wife loves this. You’re going to love this,” Weinstein allegedly told Kelly S, according to her testimony.
Kelly S. said that Weinstein then forcibly assaulted her, holding her down by her chest and legs as she begged for him to let her go. When she asked him to stop, she said Weinstein responded, “It’s not going to take long.”
Eventually she said she was able to “go out from under him,” and leave the room. After the assault, she said her acting career suffered because she “didn’t want to go through anything like that…it was too much.”
Years later, she said she was at the Four Seasons Toronto with her husband and children while they were renovating their home. She said she felt “angry” seeing Weinstein, who was at the hotel during the same film festival with his assistant.
“I wanted to see him because I wanted to ask why,” she told jurors. “All those years ago…I had thought about it often. I felt like I was ready to give it to him.”
Inside Weinstein’s hotel room, she began to confront him about the 1991 assault—but was immediately “shuttled” into a bathroom and propositioned for sex.
“Once again, it came out of nowhere. His demeanor changed,” she said, adding that she remembered thinking: “I came to confront you…how did this happen?”
Suddenly, she said that Weinstein “pulled out his penis and began masturbating” while demanding to see her breasts. She said Weinstein “didn’t take very long” before he ejaculated onto a white bathmat and exited the bathroom. The former actress said she never filed a police report about the two alleged assaults because she felt “very, very embarrassed.” But, she said, she told several friends.
