In speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Heidi Fleiss came close to defending once-powerful producer Harvey Weinstein.
When THR reporter Seth Abramovich asked her about #MeToo and Harvey Weinstein, Fleiss — the former “Hollywood Madam” convicted in the early 90s for running a high-end prostitution ring — started strong.
“I’m not going be like Donna Karan and kill my career, or like Pamela Anderson,” Fleiss said. “They say it’s the women’s fault. I will never do that because, look, every girl has been sexually taken advantage of. I think he’s disgusting and a pig. He handled this thing terribly.”
But then the famous Madam took a step back from her condemnation to add some observations of her own. “Some of it doesn’t make sense to me,” Fleiss continued. “Especially when they say, ‘Oh, it happened six times.’ That’s weird. I think in certain instances, women slept with him in exchange for a part, and he kept his end of the bargain. ”
She was significantly less kind to her ex, actor Tom Sizemore. She claimed that his drug problems were all about Sizmore’s fear of “being fat” and said that his own contribution to #MeToo — the alleged inappropriate behavior toward an 11-year-old girl that may have had him thrown off the set of Born Killers — should result in Sizemore being “castrated” if true.
Weinstein has pled not guilty to rape and criminal sex act charges in a New York City court, after turning himself in to law enforcement officers on May 25. His lawyer has made a statement, saying that Weinstein “did not invent the casting couch,” that the charges against him “are constitutionally flawed,” and “are not factually supported by the evidence.”