By Jessica Schladebeck
New York Daily News
NEW YORK — Disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein bemoaned his bleak existence behind bars and admitted the idea of dying in prison terrifies him in a newly published jailhouse interview.
Weinstein made the confession in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, his first profile published since he was sentenced to prison time for sexual assault. He claimed he is “constantly threatened and derided” by other inmates, including one who punched him in the face. The ex-movie mogul, who uses a wheelchair to get around, said he was waiting for his turn at the phone when he was suddenly pummeled by another prisoner.
“I asked the guy in front of me if he was done. He got off and punched me hard in the face,” Weinstein said.
“I fell on the floor, bleeding everywhere. I was hurt really badly,” he added, noting that he refused to “rat” out the person who struck him.
Weinstein was convicted of sexual assault in New York in 2020 and Los Angeles in 2022, after hundreds of women accused him of sexual misconduct, fueling the #MeToo back in 2016. And while his NYC conviction was overturned on appeal in 2024, he remains behind bars at the Rikers Island jail complex in New York City while he awaits retrial for allegedly raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in Midtown.
His next court date is set for April.
Weinstein described his time at the prison “hell,” explaining that his celebrity status makes his everyday life significantly riskier, forcing him into “isolation” most of the time.
“It’s too dangerous for me to be around anyone else,” he said. “Other inmates get to go to the yard. But every time I’m out there, I feel like I’m under siege.”
Weinstein explained that safety concerns left him confined to his cell for 23 hours day, but he acknowledged that he “wouldn’t last long” in general population either. He went on to admit he has considered the possibility that he would die behind bars, and that the thought “scares the s–t out of” him.
“It’s incredible to have the life that I had and the things that I did for society and not have the leniency to deal with me in a kinder way,” he said. “Whatever they think I did bad in my life, I didn’t get the death penalty.”
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