A former actor wept on the witness stand as he testified that Harvey Weinstein assaulted her twice, decades apart, during the Toronto International Film Festival.
Kelly Sipherd – who was an aspiring actor in the ’80s and ’90s but has since left the entertainment business – went into detail, claiming Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 1991 and masturbated in front of her in 2008. Both alleged assaults occurred at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto.
“You will love it. … It’s okay … it won’t be long,” Sipherd recalled of Weinstein’s words when he allegedly first assaulted and raped her. She told the jury that she repeatedly asked him to stop doing it.
She recalled him saying, “I’m going to fuck you. It will not take long. Relax yourself.”
Sipherd is a witness without a charge, meaning the 11 counts Weinstein faces are not based on her allegations. The jury will not consider the attacks Sipherd alleges, but her testimony is intended to inform the jury of an alleged pattern of Weinstein’s behavior.
Sipherd met Weinstein in 1991 at the age of 24 at a party at TIFF. She was an aspiring actress and was casually introduced to him while mingling with friends at an event. She said she and Weinstein hit it off with a cordial conversation she found friendly and professional. After “joking about art and film,” Weinstein suggested the two get a glass of wine to continue their discussion. Kelly S. agreed to go with Weinstein to a public restaurant near the party where they met. “We got on really well,” she told the judges, explaining that she had no reason to be concerned about his behavior over drinks and knew that a connection with Weinstein could be positive for her acting career. “We really sincerely had a very nice time.”
Over drinks, Weinstein mentioned a role for Sipherd and said he wanted to show her a script. “I was pretty ambitious,” she said. “I thought I wanted to get a role.”
Sipherd agreed to go to Weinstein’s hotel to look at the script. When Assistant District Attorney Marlene Martinez asked what happened next, she took a deep breath and said, “It’s a very difficult thing for me to talk about.”
Sipherd said that when she arrived at the hotel room thinking she was reading a script, Weinstein went into the hotel’s bathroom. When he emerged “fast, aggressive, purposeful,” he was naked, wearing only an unbuttoned shirt with no pants or underwear. He was holding a hot towel.
“It all happened quickly,” Sipherd murmured. She said Weinstein then removed her skirt and placed the hot towel on her vagina. “My wife loves this. You will love it,” she recalled his words.
She told jurors that Weinstein forcibly gave her oral sex and then inserted his fingers into her vagina. She said he held her by her chest and legs and she was afraid of what would happen if she tried to walk. “You have to understand how frozen I was,” she explained. “It was so out of nowhere. It was unexpected.” She became “hysterical” and was “nauseous, scared, scared.” She asked him to stop, telling the jury she told him, “Let me out of here… stop it,” to which Weinstein replied: “It will not take long.”
She then felt his penis in her vagina “for a few seconds” and grabbed his back, which she described as “mountainous with acne,” to escape. “I can’t remember exactly, but I came out from below.”
After the alleged attack in 1991, Weinstein often called Sipherd. This was before cell phones and caller ID, so she never knew he was calling. When he first called, she told the jury that she was very upset and asked, “Why did he rape me?” He told her that didn’t happen and said, “I really like you and I would like my wife.” left for you.” He then said he wanted her to come to New York to meet one of his casting executives so she could audition for a role. She told the jury that although she was attacked by Weinstein, she felt it was a “great opportunity” and took a friend with her on the trip to make her feel safe. Weinstein paid for her flight and hotel room in New York City. Her friend stayed with her in the same hotel room.
In New York, Weinstein had asked Sipherd to meet him for dinner, but when she arrived with her friend, Weinstein wasn’t there. Sipherd said that Weinstein showed up at her hotel the next morning, which he had paid for, and had the front desk call her room, although she never gave him her hotel number. On the phone he was angry and told her that her friend had to go. “He said, ‘Get rid of your friend, I’m coming up,'” Sipherd told jurors. When she refused, she said Weinstein started screaming and kept calling, more than 20 times. She kept hanging up and he kept calling. Once the hotel staff even knocked on her door and asked what to do but she told them not to let him in her room. “I could hear him screaming in the hallway,” she testified. When asked by the prosecutor how she felt, Sipherd said, “Terrible, afraid of him … he raped me.”
Sipherd decided not to go to the New York audition because of the phone call. She explained that she was “naive” and had hoped that if she brought her friend with her on the trip, she would be safe and pursue a career opportunity to audition for one of Weinstein’s films.
Sipherd told the jury the attack “derailed” her career. She explained that she was very serious about acting in her early 20s, had an agent and attended the School of Dramatic Arts. But after the alleged attack, she “didn’t want to go through something like that … it was too much.” She said the alleged incident impacted her life over the years. “It damaged my marriage because I didn’t tell him,” she said through tears. “It was really hard.”
Years later, Sipherd stayed at the Four Seasons Toronto with her husband and children for a few weeks while their home was renovated. She hadn’t seen or heard from Weinstein since the alleged 1991 attack, but she said she thought about the incident often and always confronted him about what he had done.
When she was living with her family at the Four Seasons Toronto in 2008, the time frame coincidentally coincided with TIFF. One day, after playing tennis, she was in the lobby with her daughter and boyfriend and saw Weinstein at the hotel. Sipherd shouted, “Harvey!” and says she was “angry.” She says she was “shocked” but “knew he might be there” since it was during the film festival Weinstein was attending. Weinstein’s assistant, Victoria, approached Sipherd in the lobby and said Weinstein wanted to see her.
“Actually, I wanted to see him because I wanted to ask why,” she testified. “All those years ago … I had thought about it a lot.” She added, “I felt like I was ready to give it to him.”
Weinstein’s assistant, Victoria, took her to Weinstein’s hotel room. “I blurted out, ‘How does it feel to be standing in front of the one woman who said no to you,'” she told Weinstein. She explained, “I was still in the moment of getting answers for 20 years.” Victoria was in the hallway outside the hotel room and Sipherd said she was very loud, so Weinstein took her to a bathroom. He closed the door and started proposing sex to her.
“I’m still angry. I’m afraid. And I feel stupid,” she recalled her mindset, answering Martinez’s questions. “Once again, it came out of nowhere. His demeanor has changed.” She recalled thinking, “I came to confront you… how did that happen?”
Sipherd said in the bathroom that Weinstein suddenly “pulled out his penis and started masturbating.” She said, “He wanted to see my boobs while he masturbated,” so “it turned into a negotiation” because she tried to finish everything but couldn’t get out. “I couldn’t avoid him. He was a lot bigger,” she said. She told the jury that Weinstein ejaculated onto a white bathmat. “It didn’t take long,” she said, remembering the bathroom incident lasted maybe five minutes. She said she tried not to look but remembered one particular detail. “His semen was dark orange/yellow…it didn’t look normal,” she said.
As she and Weinstein left the hotel suite, he prompted his assistant to invite Sipherd to TIFF parties. On the way down, Sipherd did not tell Victoria about the incident, explaining that she felt “sheer embarrassment”. She said: “It took me a while to even comprehend what happened.”
She didn’t tell her friends or her husband what happened in Weinstein’s hotel suite because she was “ashamed.” She said while she was at the Four Seasons in Toronto, she continued to go to festival parties and took her friends to events Weinstein had his assistant take them to, and they “thinked I was freakin’ cool because I knew Harvey Weinstein. so I played that.”
Sipherd never filed a police report for the alleged 1991 or 2008 assaults because she was “very, very embarrassed” and “felt stupid.” Over the years, she eventually told three friends what happened in 1991 and 2008.
When the bombastic stories about Weinstein broke out on October 5, 2017 and ignited the #MeToo movement, Sipherd was notified by friends. “I’ve often wondered if I’m the only person,” she told the judges.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the full name of the witness, identified by the court as “Kelly S.” After her testimony was complete, her attorney, Jennifer Brevorka, approached members of the media in the hallway of the courthouse to provide her first and last name.
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