Harvey Weinstein’s Estranged Wife Georgina Chapman Breaks Her Silence on Sexual Assault Allegations

In October, film producer Harvey Weinstein was leveled with a series of sexual assault allegations, and the claims kept on coming, accusing Weinstein of acts ranging from harassment to rape, torpedoing his career and starting a movement in the process.

Amid the allegations, Weinstein’s estranged wife, fashion designer Georgina Chapman, announced that she was leaving him, and in a new interview with Vogue, Chapman has addressed the allegations for the first time.

“I lost 10 pounds in five days,” she said of her reaction to the initial article. “I couldn’t keep food down.”

“My head was spinning,” she added. “And it was difficult because the first article was about a time long before I’d ever met him, so there was a minute where I couldn’t make an informed decision. And then the stories expanded and I realized that this wasn’t an isolated incident. And I knew that I needed to step away and take the kids out of here.”

Chapman took her two children to Los Angeles before going to London to be with her parents. She has been seeing a therapist, which she admitted was difficult to do at first.

“At first I couldn’t, because I was too shocked,” she explained. “And I somehow felt that I didn’t deserve it. And then I realized: This has happened. I have to own it. I have to move forward.”

“There was a part of me that was terribly naive — clearly, so naive,” she continued. “I have moments of rage, I have moments of confusion, I have moments of disbelief! And I have moments when I just cry for my children. What are their lives going to be? What are people going to say to them? It’s like, they love their dad. They love him. I just can’t bear it for them!”

Chapman is the co-founder of design house Marchesa along with partner Keren Craig, and the brand had been a red-carpet staple for years. After the Weinstein allegations broke, Chapman canceled the January runway show for Marchesa’s fall 2018 collection, explaining that she and Craig didn’t feel it was appropriate “given the situation.”

“All the women who have been hurt deserve dignity and respect, so I want to give it the time it deserves,” she said. “It’s a time for mourning, really.”

Despite detractors proclaiming that Marchesa was effectively finished as a brand, Chapman has seen plenty of support, and actress Scarlett Johansson recently chose a Marchesa design to wear to the Met Gala this year.

When asked if it was true she hadn’t gone out in five months, Chapman responded in the affirmative, explaining that the situation still affects her daily.

“I was so humiliated and so broken . . . that . . . I, I, I . . . didn’t think it was respectful to go out,” she said. “I thought, Who am I to be parading around with all of this going on? It’s still so very, very raw. I was walking up the stairs the other day and I stopped; it was like all the air had been punched out of my lungs.”

Still, the designer pointed out that her story is not the only one of its kind.

“I don’t want to be viewed as a victim,” she said. “Because I don’t think I am. I am a woman in a shit situation, but it’s not unique.”

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