A former aspiring actor testified Friday that Harvey Weinstein forced oral sex on her, raped her, and then manipulated her into a sexually humiliating relationship, which she said included him wanting to film her having sex, urinating on her, and asking if she liked his “big Jewish dick.”
Jessica Mann, 34, a former actor and the youngest victim to testify so far, said Weinstein raped her in his hotel room in 2013. Weinstein’s lawyers have previously indicated they will use Mann’s friendly text messages and emails to try and prove she had a consensual sexual relationship with their client, which benefited her professionally. However, Mann clarified in her testimony that she sent him several “complimentary” emails because she knew how fragile his ego was and she feared his temper.
“He was like Jekyll and Hyde,” she said.
Mann’s allegations are part of the rape charges against the disgraced Hollywood producer. The criminal indictment charges Weinstein with sexually assaulting Mann and Mimi Haley, who testified earlier this week. The testimonies of four other women, including Annabella Sciorra, will be used to show a pattern of abuse and bolster the predatory sexual assault charge he faces.
Mann grew up in Washington state and was an aspiring actor when she first met Weinstein at a party in 2013. Mann told the court that she grew up in an “extremely religious pentecostal cult,” adding that she left home when she was 16 to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles.
Mann was struggling with breaking into the industry, she said, recounting a period where she was homeless and living out of her car. When she met Weinstein, she said, he told her that he liked her look and would help her get parts in movies.
In the weeks that followed, Mann said she saw Weinstein several times, including for dinners. One day in early 2013, at his Peninsula hotel suite, Mann said Weinstein first asked her for a massage.
“He made me feel stupid, like why was I making such a big deal about this?” Mann said, adding that she “smeared the lotion around a bit” on Weinstein and then left the room.
Over the next month, she said Weinstein continued to ask her to meet for coffee, go to movie premieres, and even offered her a Marchesa dress — the designer label owned by his then-wife, Georgina Chapman.
“He told me I reminded him of his wife, because we were both clumsy,” she said. “But he told me that I was prettier.”
A few weeks later, Mann said that she and a friend met Weinstein at his room at the Mondrian hotel in LA, where he said he had a script for Vampire Academy, a film he told them they would make perfect lead actors for.
Once there, Man said that he called her into his bedroom at the suite, grabbed her by the arm, pushed her onto the bed, and forced oral sex on her, while her friend was in the other room.
During her testimony Weinstein was seen laughing in the courtroom when Mann recounted that she faked an orgasm and told Weinstein it was the best she ever had as a way to get out of there.
Mann testified that she felt confused about what had happened and attempted to maintain a relationship with Weinstein
“I had been sexual with very few people, and I couldn’t undo what had already happened,” she said, adding that their relationship became “strictly degrading from that point.”
Mann, who testified in court for several hours Friday, described her encounters with Weinstein in harrowing detail, including him forcibly urinating on her, asking her how she liked his “big Jewish dick” and coercing her to have a threesome.
Mann said she was deeply conflicted at the time, testifying that she felt compassion for Weinstein when she first saw him naked, because he had “scarring like a burn victim, no testicles, and what appeared to be a vagina.”
When Mann said this, Weinstein was seen in court closing his eyes and shaking his head.
“I thought his anger came from a place of pain. I did continue to see him even though I did not desire him sexually,” she said. “There are many likable things about him when he’s his nice self. He’s sort of a genius in his own way,” she stammered through tears.
Mann testified that Weinstein raped her on two more occasions after that, at the DoubleTree Hotel in New York, where Mann said she first realized that Weinstein had been injecting himself with a medication for erectile dysfunction.
When Mann later attempted to end her relationship with Weinstein because she had fallen in love with someone, she said he grew increasingly violent.
“When he heard that he was an actor, his eyes changed and it was like he wasn’t there,” Mann said.
After that, Mann said Weinstein was the most violent that he’d ever been, dragging her off her chair, ripping her jeans off her body, and leaving deep scars on her thighs.
“At one point it became too much and I blacked out. When I came to, he was ejaculating in my mouth.”
As he was leaving court Friday afternoon, a reporter asked Weinstein what he thought about the way Mann described his body.
"Wait to see what the lawyers say about her," he responded.
Weinstein's lawyers will cross-examine Mann on Monday.