Paula Wachowiak, who is now 62 and lives in Buffalo, New York, has revealed that Weinstein exposed himself to her in a hotel room while filming the horror movie The Burning in 1980
A woman who worked as Harvey Weinstein’s intern on his first film has claimed that he harassed her while he was naked back in 1980 and then joked about it afterward.
Paula Wachowiak, who is now 62 and lives in Buffalo, New York, has revealed that Weinstein exposed himself to her in a hotel room while filming the horror movie The Burning.
Wachowiak was a 24-year-old single mother at the time who was studying at University of Buffalo.
She told the Buffalo News that she had reached out to try and intern for Weinstein – who was a local concert promoter and producer – and he offered her a job working as a personal assistant to the film’s accountant.
Wachowiak said the accountant asked her one day to take several checks to Weinstein in his hotel room to have them signed.
‘When I got into the room I realized that he was holding a hand towel around his waist,’ she said.
She said he then took the folder she was carrying and dropped his towel, leaving him standing naked in front of her.
‘He sat on the bed with the folder over his groin and pointed to checks and asked me why we were paying for this or that,’ she said.
She claims Weinstein harassed her while he was naked in his hotel room back in 1980 and then joked about it afterward. He is pictured above in 2012
Wachowiak was a 24-year-old single mother at the time who was studying at University of Buffalo. She had reached out to try and intern for Weinstein and he offered her a job working as a personal assistant to the film’s accountant
Weinstein then started complaining about a kink in his shoulder and asked her to massage it out for him, according to Wachowiak.
Despite him telling her how much of a great opportunity he was giving her career-wise, Wachowiak said she refused his requests.
‘It was traumatic at the time,’ she said.
Toward the end of the internship, Wachowiak said she ran into Weinstein on set and he asked her: ‘So, was seeing me naked the highlight of your internship?’
‘Actually, Harvey, you disgust me,’ Wachowiak said she responded, at which point Weinstein laughed and drove off.
Wachowiak said she had shared the exchange with a number of her friends and family over the years, but had never gone to the media with it.
When she started reading the accounts of Weinstein’s victims that surfaced in the New York Times and The New Yorker, Wachowiak said she was struck by the similarity of the incidents.