A former waitress has spoken out about her personal experience with Harvey Weinstein’s ‘sleazy’ ways.
Writer Jade Budowski, who worked last year at Manhattan’s buzzy Tribeca Grill in the ground floor of the film mogul’s office building, detailed her experience in a scathing essay on Saturday for the New York Post.
‘Harvey Weinstein was every bit the sleazy caricature recent reports have made him out to be,’ Budowski wrote.
Weinstein, 65, has come under withering fire following a Thursday report revealing he has settled sexual harassment claims from at least eight women over the past three decades.
Now Budowski reveals that the married father of five was a fixture in the upscale Tribeca Grill, which is owned by Robert DeNiro.
Writer Jade Budowski, who worked last year at Manhattan’s buzzy Tribeca Grill in the ground floor of Weinstein’s office building, detailed her experience in a scathing essay
Weinstein, 65, has come under withering fire following a Thursday report revealing he has settled sexual harassment claims from at least eight women over the past three decades
Weinstein’s food tastes were those of a ‘toddler’ though, she wrote: ‘well-done’ fries, chopped-up fettuccine, ice cream with extra sprinkles and French onion soup ‘that he would slurp and splatter all over the booth’.
The movie mogul’s tastes in women were equally predictable, with a steady stream of dates who appeared barely 21, and looked ‘vaguely European, always beautiful, stylishly dressed, and totally out of place next to someone like him’.
If the women were sitting at the bar when Weinstein arrived, even if they’d requested to wait for him there, Budowski says he would fly into a rage, screaming at the servers: ‘Why the f**k isn’t she at the table?’
At one of Weinstein’s favored tables in the back of the dining room, the dates would proceed along a regular formula: ‘Champagne, caviar, and an unspoken rule that Weinstein and his date not be disturbed.’
‘We all knew what was in store for her,’ a former coworker recalled to Budowski.
‘After a little small talk and a sip of champagne, there would be an “office tour” – usually well past working hours, after which the girl would return looking worse for wear and barely able to finish the glass.’
Married father-of-five Weinstein was a fixture in the upscale Tribeca Grill (pictured), which is owned by Robert DeNiro, according to Budowski
Weinstein is seen in September. Budowski says he brought a string of young twenty-somethings to the restaurant in his office building
At one of Weinstein’s favored tables in the back of Tribeca Grill (pictured), the dates would proceed along a regular formula: Champagne, caviar, and an after-hours ‘office tour’ upstairs
These so-called ‘office tours’ would sometimes last hours, while at Weinstein’s insistence their table sat untouched, food growing cold, the ex-waitress said.
Not all of his dates were put off by this routine, apparently, with some of them returning for second or third dates with the powerful producer.
Staff at the restaurant were terrorized though, claims Budowski, fearing Weinstein’s penchant for ‘inappropriate touching’.
Budowksi left the Tribeca Grill in January and has gone on to work as an arts and entertainment journalist.
One-third of the nine-man board at Harvey Weinstein’s company resigned after the harassment allegations became public.
The company declined to comment on Budowski’s recollections.
But the Weinstein Company has launched an internal probe into the claims against their disgraced co-founder, and confirmed he would take an indefinite leave of absence.