The day before I was to meet Harvey Weinstein, a blizzard dumped a foot of snow on New York, grinding the city to a halt. It seemed like an omen. Waking in my hotel the next morning, I half hoped that Rikers would be closed as well. Then my phone buzzed with a terse email from a prison administrator: “We’re on!” it said.
So, I called an Uber and nervously set off with a cameraman and a trunk full of recording equipment for the short voyage to Rikers, the notorious island facility in Queens where Weinstein has been incarcerated for much of the past six years.
Getting into Rikers is only slightly easier than breaking out of it. The Uber dropped us off at a parking lot outside the facility, where we waited in the frigid cold for a prison official to pick us up. Then, after an obstacle course of barbed-wire gates and metal detectors, we arrived at the crumbling cinder-block structure that Weinstein has called home for the better part of two years.
Over the past few years, the 73-year-old has been hospitalized for a laundry list of maladies: diabetes, a heart operation, cancer. Spinal stenosis keeps him in a wheelchair most of the time. Because of his infirmities, he is housed in a medical unit of the jail, away from the general population. Safety concerns keep him confined to his cell for 23 hours a day.
For me, this visit also was something of a reunion. I first encountered him in 1999, when I worked as editorial director of Talk magazine, the ill-fated monthly that Weinstein launched with the legendary editor Tina Brown. Our first meeting was not auspicious. I arrived at work to find an ashen-faced Tina slumped on a chaise in her office as Harvey, phoning in from a yacht trip to Capri, screamed profanities at her from a speakerphone.
That was the Harvey that many people remember — crude, profane and vindictive. But there was a different side to Harvey as well. He could be charming, funny and generous, an odd duality that some of his victims testified to in court. He was a keen judge of talent and stories, and fiercely loyal to his favorites. Our biggest fight, ironically, was over Gwyneth Paltrow, who went on to be one of his most prominent critics. Once, after she appeared on Talk‘s cover, Harvey fumed that the story was too hard on her. “Don’t fuck with my fucking friends,” he bellowed, and angrily hurled the magazine at me.
But my most indelible memory of him came a few years later, during a trip we took to ground zero just days after 9/11, accompanied by Tina and Harvey’s then-PR chief, Matt Hiltzik. It was both a mission to deliver food to first responders and, for Harvey, a morbid flex. Downtown was shut off to everyone but emergency personnel. But Harvey had somehow secured a placard to get our car through the police roadblocks and checkpoints to the still-smoldering site. Balancing a giant soup tureen and a sack of sandwiches, we made our way through the rubble in stunned silence, punctured suddenly by Harvey’s baritone growl.
“Matt! Get me a bagel,” he yelled.
We all looked at him with amazement. “Harvey, the bagels are for the firemen,” Hiltzik finally replied.
“Don’t forget the cream cheese,” Harvey snapped.
Back then, at the apex of his career, Harvey mostly got a pass for appalling behavior. He was an A-list Hollywood producer with his mitts on magazines, theater, publishing and politics. He palled around with prime ministers and presidents. Then, in 2017, a set of blockbuster stories — in The New York Times and The New Yorker — revealed his history of sexual harassment and abuse, precipitating his dizzying fall from grace. Over the years, as his case dominated the news and set off a movement that took down scores of other prominent men accused of abuse, I couldn’t help but wonder what had become of that old Harvey. Had all those court cases and public disgraces dampened his hubris? What lessons had he gleaned from his reversal of fortune? How did he assess the tarnished legacy he had struggled so mightily to build? And what did he do all day?
The Harvey I remembered was fond of grand entrances, usually trailed by a pack of attentive aides. This Harvey just silently materialized — slumped in a wheelchair steered by a bored-looking corrections officer. He was much thinner and grayer and paler than I remembered him. His yellow prison jumpsuit blended with the yellow-painted room to give him a greenish tinge.
“And so,” he said theatrically, “we meet again.”
For the next hour — Rikers had strictly limited the interview to 60 minutes — Harvey sat in a drafty conference room, his publicist, Juda Engelmayer, and a cluster of prison officials watching from the corner, and fielded questions about his daily life behind bars and the history of sex crimes that had landed him there. He cycled through a series of operatic emotions–pride, fury, self-pity, shame. But his six years of incarceration had failed to inspire any genuine contrition. The world may have branded him a monster, but Harvey still considers himself a victim — crucified for a bygone era of Hollywood sins. When pressed, he concedes that his behavior may have been loutish, pathetic and even abusive. But he insists he’s no rapist — just an oversexed schmuck who made some stupid moves and accidentally launched a global social movement.
Unfortunately for him, three successive juries have disagreed. Since the first news stories appeared, close to 100 women have come forward to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual misconduct, setting off an avalanche of civil and criminal legal proceedings that are still wending their way through the justice system in New York and California. His first New York trial, in 2020, ended in conviction on charges including rape in the third degree, with a sentence of 23 years in prison. But that conviction was overturned in 2024 — not on grounds of innocence but on a procedural ruling — with a 2025 retrial that ended in a mixed verdict: a conviction on one count, an acquittal on a second charge and a mistrial on the third. In 2023 he received a 16 year sentence for rape and other crimes after a long jury trial in Los Angeles. The judge ruled that his term would run consecutively—not concurrently–with his New York sentence.
Our conversation was conducted in late January, a week before yet another verdict was expected in yet another New York retrial. Harvey made it clear that he hoped this interview — his first major sit-down since his arrest — would be published before then. (The trial has been rescheduled to begin April 14.) When our hour was nearly over, a Rikers representative ordered us to wind things down. Harvey slumped exhaustedly in his chair. But as the guard started to wheel him out of the room, the former mogul roused himself for one final pitch.
“You gotta get this out soon, Maer. I’ve given you a fucking world exclusive! Oprah begged me to talk to her. So did Tina Brown. NBC said …”
His voice trailed off as he was pushed down the hall back to his cell — but it would not be the last time I’d hear from him. For weeks afterward, he’d call me from Rikers dozens of times at all kinds of odd hours to make additional points. “I got Harvey on the line,” Engelmayer would announce, very Hollywood-like, then patch Weinstein in. (His comments have been incorporated into this transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.)
After the interview, another guard arrived to lead the way back off to the barren, freezing parking lot in Queens. On the way out, I asked the officer what he knew about Weinstein’s life before prison. He shrugged. “He used to be somebody in Hollywood, right?”
I think we last saw each other at some premiere at the Four Seasons — like 25 years ago. That seems like a universe away. What’s a typical day like for you here?
I spend almost all of it in my cell. Sometimes I’ll go out in the wheelchair just to get some air, but that’s only half an hour. Mostly I’m in my cell 23 hours a day. I don’t have any human contact other than with the guards.
You don’t speak to other inmates?
I just speak to the guards. And the nurses. That’s the extent of my socializing here. There’s no socializing in my wing.
Because it’s Rikers Island and it’s hell. It was different when I was in state prison. I got up in the morning, I had breakfast, I saw friends, I spoke to people. We all watched TV together. I’ve been begging to go to state, but the DA’s office says, “Because you have a trial upcoming, you stay at Rikers. We want to keep an eye on you.” They kept an eye on me for 19 months now. I don’t know where they think I’m going.
Has your celebrity been a help or a hindrance?
Here at Rikers, it hurts me because it forces me into isolation. It’s too dangerous for me to be around anyone else. Other inmates get to go to the yard. But every time I’m out there, I feel like I’m under siege. They come up and say, “Weinstein, give me some money.” “Weinstein, give me your lawyer.” “Weinstein, do this.” “Weinstein, do that.” I’m constantly threatened and derided. I wouldn’t last long out there.
That didn’t happen to you upstate?
No. Because I was just one of the prisoners in a small group, and you get to know people that way. It’s lonely in prison. You just try to connect with people and not think too much about what got them there. I was friendly with one guy who read all the time — not like the Great Books, but writers David Baldacci or Harlan Coben. I turned him on to Daniel Silva, and he was very appreciative. When I was there, I volunteered to teach a course on how books become movies — like James Patterson and J.K. Rowling, like that. But they weren’t interested. I’ll try again if I ever make it back.
One time while I was waiting to use the phone, I asked the guy in front of me if he was done. He got off and punched me hard in the face. I fell on the floor, bleeding everywhere. I was hurt really badly. The cops asked me who had done it, but I couldn’t say. You can’t be a rat. That’s the law of the jungle.
Do you make many phone calls?
Once every three hours I get about 16 to 18 minutes on the phone. That’s my lifeline. I speak to three of my children every single day: my oldest daughter, who is 30 now, and my 12-year-old and my 15-year-old. My other two children haven’t talked to me for six years. I also speak to my lawyers and to a few friends. It’s the only thing that keeps me sane.
What do your younger kids know about your situation? What do you tell them about how you got here?
They know everything. They are old enough to google. But I told them I never sexually assaulted anyone, and they believe me. Back when I was in Bellevue, it was easier to see them. I won’t allow my daughter to come and see me here. My son-in-law takes my 12-year-old to visit sometimes. But it’s hard for him too. It’s emotionally crippling for him.
At your trial, you were constantly photographed with books under your arm. How do you get them?
I order them on Amazon, and they FedEx them to me. Sometimes a few a day. I’ve always liked to read, but there’s not much else to do here. You don’t get the Times at Rikers — the only paper here is the Daily News. But a friend sends me the Sunday Book Review every week.
Is there a particular kind of book you’re drawn to?
When I was on trial in L.A., I went through my whole high school curriculum. A Farewell to Arms. For Whom the Bell Tolls. Gatsby. I hadn’t read those books since I was 17. Reading them at 73 years old, trapped in a cell — it just hits differently. At Rikers I’m reading memoir after memoir. Graydon’s memoir. Barry Diller’s. Keith McNally’s, which was incredible. I just finished Tom Freston’s book, which was pretty good, actually. But then there’s a line in it that says, “I know Harvey Weinstein. He was a predator.” It’s just one line. But it broke my heart.
It’s interesting that a single line in a book still has that kind of impact on you. Aren’t you used to that by now?
Freston is someone I knew for many years. That he now thinks of me that way — it just hurts when people who were friends buy into it. It still bothers me.
Are you allowed to watch movies?
