Georgina Chapman, the estranged ex-wife of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, has spoken publicly about the scandal for the first time.
Since October, more than 50 women have come forward with allegations against Weinstein include sexual assault, harassment, and unwanted advancement over decades. In response, Weinstein’s spokesperson noted, “any allegations of non-consensual sex are unequivocally denied by Mr Weinstein.”
But the British designer - she is one of the co-founders of Marchesa, a red-carpet favourite (or at least, it was until the scandal broke) - has removed herself from the narrative; out of respect for the victims, for the sake of her sanity and her young family. She has two children with Weinstein, a seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son. In fact, it has been easy to forget that she is also a woman who has had her life turned upside down by the shocking allegations.
In her first interview since Hollywood - and her life - was rocked with the allegations, she told Vogue that she hadn't gone out in public in five months and that, even while still processing the early days of the scandal, her response, was very much fight-or-flight mode, removing her young children out of the glare of the spotlight.
“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."
“My head was spinning. And it was difficult because the first article was about a time long before I’d ever met him... And then the stories expanded and I realised that this wasn’t an isolated incident. And I knew that I needed to step away and take the kids out of here.”
As a mother, she said it was her children and how they would cope with the after-effects of the scandal that was particularly difficult to deal with.
“I have moments when I just cry for my children. What are their lives going to be?” she said, through sobs and tears during the interview. “It’s like, they love their dad. They love him. I just can’t bear it for them!”
Shortly after the allegations became public, Chapman announced she was divorcing Weinstein and spoke only of her sympathy for the women accusing him of his alleged crimes. "My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions,” she said at the time.
But Chapman has been the centre of another narrative and one which be forever entangled with that of a sexual predator - one who just happens the father of her two children. She knew nothing, she says, of her ex-husband's apparent and horrifying behaviour, but the general whisper is one of complicity; guilt by association. She must have known, how can she not have? is what they say. How could she not know that her former husband apparently coerced actresses into wearing her designs on the red carpet, as well as everything else? Did she turn a blind eye? Or refuse to see the red flags? Either way, she can't win; she's a fool for not seeing it or the woman who stood idly behind a monster.
Asides from being another woman on a massive list of people he has caused immense distress and pain, what she was, she says, is "terribly naive." But she said she was never suspicious about Weinstein’s behaviour. “I had what I thought was a very happy marriage,” she says. “I loved my life.” Adding that her former husband had treated her and her children well during their 10-year marriage. Given the way the movie producer conducted his 'business' and the length he went to allegedly cover his abuses up, one can almost see how Chapman could have remained in a bubble.
Chapman shouldn’t be punished for the sins of another, but it doesn't stop - we still judge her for the actions of her husband, never mind that she's cut ties with him - and condemned him publicly to boot. Women are consistently blamed for the actions of their husbands, despite the fact that it's the men who betray their wives. Look at Hilary and Bill Clinton? Or more recently, Huma Abedin and her now ex-husband Anthony Weiner? It's a tale as old as time: target the woman linked to the man, for she must be the 'enabler'.
We'll never know for sure the extent of what Chapman may have known or perhaps suspected, but what we do know is that both she and her children are victims - her young children complete innocents - and as one of Chapman’s friends put it in Vogue, "she is a good person who married a bad person" - but Weinstein has ensured that she'll likely never get to end her story on that emphatic page.
