Surviving Weinstein: Kaja Sokola’s Story of Strength

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Welcome to the shit show.

Things are going to get weird.

It's your fae villain, Kayla.

And you're listening to Barely Famous.

Today's guest is Kaya Sokola, a former model, clinical psychologist, and one of the brave voices who came forward against Harvey Weinstein.

She has since dedicated her life to mental health advocacy, using her experience and training to support survivors of trauma and abuse.

We're honored to have her here and share her story and insight.

All right, Kaya, thank you so much for joining us on Barely Famous Podcast.

Thank you for having me.

You have a very powerful story to share.

And for those who are not familiar with it,

you came over here from Poland to pursue modeling and acting.

Is that right?

Yes, yes.

Well, my dream was always acting.

Modeling, you know, I started working when I was 14 and it happened very fast.

I I did not love this industry, but you know,

I was working.

I had a good agency, so I was working.

But when I was 16, I came here for the first time

and

really wanted to proceed in acting.

Did your family come with you over here?

No.

You were here by yourself?

I was here by myself completely.

So what was that like?

I mean, right now, when I look at kids that are 15, because I started traveling by myself when I was 15.

It's scary because 15 is still a kid, right?

It's very young.

And

so I just took it as something that came naturally.

And I was supposed to do that.

I was a good student and I was pretty obedient when it comes to instructions that I was getting.

But, you know, back then, we had to still use paper mops.

Yeah.

It was hard.

I'm sure it was challenging.

It was very challenging.

And, you know, just like taking care of what you eat, to have, you know, managing food, managing sleep, everything by yourselves.

It was definitely like a jump on the deep water.

Did your agency help you with that?

And where would you, how did you live over here at 15, 16 years old with no family?

The model's apartment.

What?

Yeah.

Four girls

at, you know, the tiny space, probably like one-third of this.

And there was supposed to be a supervisor.

Okay.

But basically, it was just, you know.

A free-for-all.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then, so how did you end up meeting Harvey then?

Because obviously you were 15, 16 years old, and he's, what, in his 50s?

Yeah.

So how did you come across him?

He came across me actually.

It was, I went,

for like a modeling dinner where promoters invite, you know, girls.

and

that's how naive I was I was so

shocked and so

thankful for inviting me for a dinner because it's you know it's free food in a great restaurant and I kept on thinking like what are these people getting from you know inviting models to dinners and obviously it's just you know kind of a pimping out girls or promoting the I mean

I would call it that right now Right.

You know, but for what though?

Like there are, you know, when there are pretty young girls in the clubs or in the restaurants, a lot of wealthy men are coming in hopes of meeting someone, meeting a soulmate.

I'm kidding.

But yeah,

that's how it works.

So he was invited then to the dinner?

He was there.

He was, yeah, he was there.

So Butter had a restaurant on top and then like a small club

downstairs.

So after the dinner, I went downstairs

and there he was.

Did you guys hit it off right away?

Like, friendly?

I mean, it's you know, I was extremely happy when I met him and when he said that

he's a producer and that he sees potential in me, and that you know, I look like an actress.

How do actresses look like actually?

They have it, they are like unicorns.

You can see one, you can spot it.

But, um, but yeah, so at this at the moment i of course believed him and i did not have any fear of men like that because i've never experienced i mean i had a great relationship with my dad and he was he was like a role model he would you know and uh he was always very respectful to women to my mom um

And so, you know,

it really did not cross my mind that this man can be any, any

kind of can bring any kind of danger into my life.

Also, you know,

in modeling agents, I had agents that were men, I had agents that were women, and I never experienced anything bad from them either.

So I, you know, I thought, okay, that's like another

kind of like an agent, producer agent, it's the same thing.

So you developed like a working relationship at that point?

I did, I didn't.

You can't call that

a working relationship.

So a few days after we met, he invited me for lunch.

And again, I didn't, you know, I didn't see this as something

unusual.

I thought, you know, a lunch, it's a, you know, in the middle of the day, what can go wrong?

Right.

We're going to go to a restaurant, that's what he said.

But

when I got into the car, there was a driver in the car.

He was on phone for a little bit and then he seemed kind of like upset or stressed.

And he said that he doesn't have time for lunch, so we're just going to talk.

And

I mean,

right now when I'm hearing myself, it's kind of like, my God, this was such a cliche example of how a day rape looks like.

But again, I didn't.

I didn't have fear in me until we got to the elevator that was taking us to his apartment.

Then I got very uncomfortable, obviously.

But he didn't, you know, he didn't talk much.

And yes, and then he sexually assaulted me in the apartment, knowing that I'm 16 years old, which

for me, this itself, it's just so creepy and disgusting.

I'm just going to jump forward a little bit.

I remember when he was saying,

when he was talking to the press during this trial, the criminal trial, and Harvey was apologizing to his family, to his wife, to his kids.

He was saying that

he did immoral things, but never anything criminal.

Well, you know what?

How assaulting a 16-year-old girl

you can call immoral, but not criminal.

And he didn't even apologize to any of his victims, which to me it's

another level of narcissistic psychosis.

It feels like another crime, right?

Like you're apologizing to everyone except for the people that you did, you traumatized.

Have you connected with the other victims at all?

I spoke to Jessica.

Jessica is really amazing.

Tarala.

Tarala speaks to Cassie.

So I feel like we are getting, you know,

it's kind of like a tiny community, you can maybe say

of women.

Because

I mean, I don't think that anyone can really truly understand what it feels like

to, you know, go through trial,

go, you know, open up the wounds and publicly speak about, you know, the biggest traumas of your life if they didn't go through it.

So that's why

Tarala was extremely helpful.

She was there during the first trial in 2020

as a Maldino witness.

So

talking to her really helped me to kind of ease into this whole process of trial and the aftermath of it.

After he assaulted you the first time, because you were so young, obviously you can't be faulted for not really,

where do you go from there?

You know what I mean?

So where did you go from there?

Did you tell anyone?

I didn't, I didn't, I didn't tell anyone.

Look, I was so

because it's like a Stockholm syndrome, like you're so connected to the perpetrator and so scared of him that you know, it's it's really hard, even as a grown woman, to talk about this.

Yeah, and I really loved, I recently read something that Charlize Terran actually said

about her

hair abuser.

And it also, she said that it took her many decades to speak about this.

And her using her voice and saying that don't judge people that don't come forward with it.

It's a trauma and it takes a long time.

You know, we have this ideal scenario that right after you rape, you go to the doctor, get exam, get checked, and talk to your friends.

No,

that's not how it is.

So Miriam, who was Mimi, who was also in this trial, she actually told,

I think she was like the only one that

talked to a friend right after this happened.

But when she was assaulted, she was 29 years old.

So there's a huge difference between a 29-year-old woman and a 16 or 20.

So, I mean, I'm super happy that she did speak to someone because it helps in the criminal trial for sure a lot.

Right.

Because someone supported, you know, what what she has said.

But yeah, but it but it usually takes really a long time.

And I don't I don't blame any of y'all for that because it's scary.

And you don't especially when you look at you were 16 and he was a man in power, right?

Like he had wealth, he had status, he had, you know what I mean?

So like knowing that you're you are gonna go up against someone like that, what are you

nothing?

I I wouldn't I honestly, i at the time i wouldn't even know who to talk to yeah that makes sense

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We spoke like, let's say once, twice per year when I was traveling, but it wasn't like, obviously, a tight relationship.

Right, right, right.

But we did speak.

And

I mean, he made it,

he made sure that I will feel like it's all normal.

It's all totally okay.

Like he normalized it.

And when I was, you know, 16, 17, I felt like, okay, maybe this is, maybe he's right.

Maybe this is how it is.

Well, that was my next question.

Did that sort of shape the way that you looked at the modeling industry?

You were like, okay, this is normal.

Maybe this is what goes on.

For sure,

it was crossing my mind.

Right.

One thing that was difficult for me to understand was

he said that he built

careers of Gwyneth Patrol and Penelope Cruz, right?

And so

I, at the same time, berated myself because I thought that these actresses, for sure, he didn't do anything to them.

So then when Gwyneth Patrel came forward and spoke about, you know, what he did to her or what he was trying,

it was like a huge,

I don't want to say relief, but almost like a relief that it's not me who was the stupid Polish teenage model that

got herself in a situation like this, but he was just a predator that was

assaulting women all the time.

Right.

And people, to be fair.

Right.

So you just, obviously you don't wish that on anyone, but you felt seen, I'm sure.

You felt you weren't crazy because at some point you look at, you're like, wait, am I crazy?

Did that happen?

Was it as bad as I thought?

And I've, I've been there, so I understand.

Did you ever think that, okay, if I speak up or I speak out, I'll be blacklisted and I can't continue my career?

Did that ever scare you?

I mean, I didn't think about that, but at the time, so when I

when I wrote an email to the lawyers that were at the time of the case in 2017, I think, or 2018, something like that.

I was working for

TV in Poland and I was managing a rehab clinic.

And after the news came out in 2019,

yeah, there was a lot of hate.

You know, people were trying, I mean, some trolls on internet, but saying that what kind of a psychologist is she, you know, just kind of degrading my knowledge just because of what happened when I was younger, which is

very cruel.

And right now we can observe this as well, these waves of like hatred.

Right.

Or it's Cassidy towards, you know, women in Harvey's trial.

And I think that that's why these kind of conversations,

really thank you for having me, are so important because,

you know, it's so easy to throw dirt at someone who already been traumatized so much, but we are real people.

We are not just some, you know, pictures on the, uh, in the magazine.

We are real women who, you know, who suffered already enough.

So just enough with the hatred.

Well, and then that was my, one of my next questions, too.

One of the things that you've said in other interviews is that you, you know,

one of the bigger roadblocks is not having laws and protections for victims.

What is your experience with that?

Because I know you went up against big companies like Disney and things like that, but you, they dismissed, I guess, all of your evidence.

Is that right?

No, no, no, no.

So, with in the civil case, I worked out.

And then

in this, in the criminal case,

the worst part was, you know, knowing that my sister is working with the defense.

And I,

like,

I it's still hard for me to talk about this because, you know, one thing, lawyers that are trying to tear you apart, but that's their job, to be fair.

Yeah.

But, you know, your own sister doing that.

Was she here?

She was in the U.S.

So the reason, yes, the reason why she was testifying is because when I was 19, she actually went with me for lunch with Harvey.

And so,

you know, she was there testifying about, you know, the fact that we went for lunch together.

And then, you know, in her grand jury testimony, she said that when I, that I went with him upstairs, right?

That's when he raped me.

But when I came back,

I didn't tell her, but I was extremely tense and I didn't speak.

I was kind of mute, you know.

I just wanted to shut myself down.

And then she maybe asked if everything's okay.

I didn't answer and we, you know, kept on going with our day.

But it was very clear that something had to happen.

because you know I'm a pretty bubbly talkative person and during lunch you know I was excited to hear about the movie projects we're talking during lunch

he was talking about European actresses in American films and so it kind of felt like okay maybe right now he's you know he's really wanting to help me and my sister who I really wanted to have approval of

was hearing that so I thought she will also believe that this is not just some kind of a ludicrous idea of mine to be an actress but here's a producer he's a man who actually created a lot of careers, and he's saying that I can be the next one.

So, you know,

again, it felt like there's something good coming out of that.

So did you ever have a conversation with your sister about why she would do, like, testify against you?

I have not talked to her after that.

So what she did in court was

I read her testimony.

I couldn't be there because the way it works during criminal trials, if you are testifying, if you're a victim, you can't be there during other testimonies so that nobody will say that you tailored your testimony to look like others, right?

Okay, so I didn't know what she exactly said until the end of the trial when I got the transcripts.

And she completely changed her testimony.

She suddenly said that

when I got back down, I looked like someone who's waiting for an Oscar.

What the fuck is that?

What does that mean?

She was trying to portray me as, you know,

I don't know, I don't know.

But for sure, she wanted to paint it differently.

And then she changed her testimony so that she was almost impeached because she suddenly said that,

yeah, we talked normally and everything was normal, and everything was, you know, the rest of the day was normal.

And then the prosecutors gave her the testimony and said, this is not what you said,

you know, last August.

And so she started kind of maneuvering that she doesn't remember that English is not her first language and all this kind of bullshit but obviously she was you know she was really trying to hurt me but but why you guys had a good enough relationship you said that you always wanted to have her approval that's really upsetting yes uh so the the relationship was

let's say pure on my side I would say that yeah because I you know I never wanted to compete like I I'm not jealous of others.

I never really was.

If, you know, if

she's a doctor,

smart.

But, I mean, she did certain things that really, really hurt me.

And she

continues to try to do that.

And unfortunately, I think that money are a big part of this.

of the way she acts.

Right.

But jealousy probably as well, you know.

Yeah.

So

you go through the trial,

you find out that your sister testifies essentially against you.

Yeah.

You don't have a relationship with her.

And you go up against big opponents like Disney, like we were saying.

What was the deciding factor for you where you're like, I am going to stand up for myself?

My son.

Yeah.

My son.

Absolutely.

He...

He is my reason for everything, truly.

And

I just love love him to death and and

you know I had to I had to fight for myself

from the abuse of my husband okay my ex-husband and that's when it first started I started to slowly feel more powerful because you know

before I escaped from Poland

I had a separation with my ex

for two months.

I went to my friend and then I asked her if I can stay there, then I rented Airbnb apartment.

Because the abuse was so horrible, I started to understand that I can't stay in that same situation because it's going to go on him, on my son.

And it started to.

And I think that where I'm going with that is that once I started to gain a little bit of power,

like feeling stronger, then all the other stuff were

easy, let's say, to take in consideration and make decision to, you know, participate in the trials, to

escape from Poland, to build a new life.

But

it is very hard.

Yeah, I could imagine.

I could imagine.

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When did you first realize that there were other victims that Harvey

traumatized?

2017, 2018.

And it was,

I mean, I didn't...

I didn't see that in press myself at first, but a friend of mine who knew that I know him, he didn't know the details, but he knew that I was scared of him.

I mean, many people knew that I was scared of him.

My friend Tanya knew that I was scared of him,

and she wanted to testify on my behalf in the criminal trial, but they didn't have a chance to like

question her.

Right.

But so

yeah, so my friend told me, wrote me a message saying that

I don't know what happened between you and harvey but check this article out because there are a lot of women that are coming forward and i think it might be helpful for you and useful and so when i read that i was i was shocked right i was shocked um

to hear you know these so

first of all the number of women like

100 I don't know, like hundreds, right?

And how many are there that didn't speak?

Right.

Probably a lot more.

Right.

So this, and then, you know, the big names, Angelina,

Gwen of Patrol, and, you know, many other actresses.

And it felt,

again, it felt relieving at the same time as, you know, of course, I

wouldn't wish it to anyone.

Right.

But it just felt like, you know,

I'm not the one.

to be blamed here because this still you know it's like the cycle of aggression it's like in domestic violence situations right

Victims still feel like it's, you know, it's almost their fault for a long time because of the gaslighting and everything, right?

Right.

And so,

yeah, so it's hard to get out of this cycle of abuse.

And usually also,

it's kind of a pattern that, you know, if you were

assaulted or if you were bullied when you were a kid, this is the kind of relationships that you will tend to continue until there's going to be therapy and just deeper understanding of yourself and knowing that

this is

my only fault in this happening abuse is

not knowing myself well enough to set boundaries.

Fair, but so who did you contact then at that point when you saw that there were so many other victims?

What is the next step?

Who do you call?

I wrote an email to Elizabeth Fagan, I think that was her name.

She was an attorney who brought the first

class action case.

Okay.

And so after

there were a lot of like

horrible things happening with the class action case because initially the pot of money was supposed to be something like 140 million dollars for all the women for hundreds of women and then they started to downgrade it downgrade it downgrade it and it ended up being i think 14 million from 140 yeah

yeah that the the drop was horrible and that's when i decided to get out of class action and I contacted Douglas Vidgor,

who is an amazing attorney,

and filed my own civil case

against Disney.

And you won?

Yes.

How terrified were you to go up against a company like Disney?

You know what?

I

understood how big it is when I started talking to people.

and I saw the like the

freeze effect.

Like people were scared to talk about that.

Right.

That's when I understood that it's it's a big deal.

It is a very big deal.

And um

then again, something that was very helpful was to hear Abigail Disney um kind of standing up for me and saying that these compa this company should pay because they knew that a lot of horrible things are happening um, you know, in in the company.

Right.

And they didn't do nothing about about that right so it was

it was kind of encouraging and it was really nice to hear that from her in the article absolutely so now looking back you know obviously we're older um how do you feel about

managers and things like that managing kids in the industry right because you came over here with no family and you just had to trust your agency right and you had to trust their connections and whoever you met so now we have people that have booking agents and managers and publicists and everything else.

Like, do you think that if you had some of those people for you and advocating in your corner that things would have turned out differently?

I believe so.

I hope so.

But I think that,

I mean, I don't like fashion industry.

I just don't like it.

I think it's very exploitative to young women.

A lot of girls, I would say the majority of girls, are working here without working permits.

Not legally.

And this has been happening for years, for decades and decades and decades.

And you think that's even true to this day?

I mean, I'm not sure, so I don't wanna, I don't want to.

Right, right, of course.

My assumption is yes.

So they're coming all like girls are coming here

and not working legally, essentially.

Because for what reason, though?

Just because they can't?

It takes a long, long time, and it takes money to file for the

U visa or O visa, the working visa, work visa.

So, you know, when girls are coming here for, let's say, four weeks in the summer and they're being tested to see if they can work or they can't,

again, my assumption is that not all of them get working

visa, which the process itself takes months.

Right.

So it's not an overnight thing.

Okay.

And then they come across people like Harvey Weinstein.

And then and then, you know, it's another layer of fear because you're working illegally.

It, you know,

I mean, personally for me, I was scared that he can get me kicked out of the country or block me from coming here.

Right.

No, that made no sense.

Yeah.

I could not imagine.

So then you take a step back from your modeling career.

Yes.

What was the deciding factor there?

You just realized you didn't like it.

A lot of things.

I was dating someone who was an actor and

it just I understood that at this point this world is too toxic for me.

And I need to balance myself out because I'm going to just go down like a rock,

you know, sink.

So

although I missed, you know, missed this world, missed New York, missed,

let's say, traveling, not working.

But I knew that

there's no way I could keep on going.

The way that it is going.

Just to your previous question, what I think should change regarding agents and agencies, I think that there should be psychologists working with models.

That's for sure that's number one.

Like you have sex coordinators on film set.

You have psychologists on film set.

What about models?

Why people don't, why agents don't want models to work with psychologists?

Because what?

Because they will say how horrible it is and they will complain and then the modeling industry will have a bad PR.

Well, guess what?

It already has a bad PR.

Right.

We know it.

Yeah.

We know what goes on with models.

So during this time, when you step away from your modeling career, you go into psychology and you get your degree.

What was why psychology?

I just really wanted to help myself and understand myself.

Yeah.

And

throughout the years, I started to really like it.

And I started to notice how I can be helpful to others.

And of course, as a rookie psychologist, I would, oh my god, I would make so many mistakes.

I apologize to my first patients, but I hope, yeah, you're okay now.

But

I think first time when I really understood how impactful it can be was when

my professor with whom I was writing my master's thesis told me that I should actually work on models and eating disorders and body image

problems because that was something that I was very interested in.

I suffered from anorexia and bulimia and

it's really

hard to

get out of that.

It really is like addiction and we compare it to addiction,

especially that for women, very often bulimia goes with alcoholism.

Okay.

So it's like it's all connected.

But

so when I was writing my thesis, I wrote it, I made a research on

a group of

90 models or something like that, I don't remember.

And like the percentage that of the girls that had body image problems or eating disorders was up the roof, you know, and so they're really,

you know, there really should be help provided to girls and women working in the show business or in modeling industries.

And did you see that a lot when you were modeling yourself?

Like

eating disorders or disordered eating?

I just did an episode with Jackie Gold Snyder.

She wrote a book on her battle with anorexia.

I think it was like 15 years or something like that.

She was struggling really really bad with it.

And so, um but it's you know it never really I mean I don't know what she would say but I personally I think that it never really ends like you have to

have this in mind for the rest of your life because

you know certain things can just trigger and

I mean I

had so much anxiety during that period that I was, for example, eating compulsively and I just and I understood and I understand that this is my way of trying to cope with stress right

but but yeah it's you know it's something that that really stays like a shadow with you all the time

no regrets for your psychology degree though no no no the this trial was the inception of the me too movement so

what was what was it like dealing with the criticism of that?

Yeah, I think that you know a lot of people were saying that Me Too is dead and

and unfortunately I think that it's not bad but not in a good condition.

We saw it in the Diddy trial and and and this trial that there is some kind of a shift and

what's really scary is that

I don't think that people don't believe women.

I think it's more that they don't care anymore, which is almost even worse.

Why do you think that is?

Why do you think they don't care?

Because maybe a lot of people are thinking, maybe people are thinking that, you know, they deserved it.

They put themselves in this situation.

It's kind of the same thing that was on both trials, pushing the limit to say that it was consensual.

that both parties wanted to participate in that.

And, you know, I think that maybe people think that, you know, yeah, they put themselves in this situation, so, you know, it's their fault.

That's actually so sad.

That is worse, I think, than don't believe it.

1,000%.

There have been so many,

you know, big cases,

Blake and Justin Baldoni, and Amber Hart and Johnny Dapp.

And I think that, you know, it's...

It's really bad if you put

all cases in the same basket, you you know?

Because Amber lost her case, right?

And it was, you know, a big setback.

And I think that that also impacted the way people portray me, too.

Other cases?

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, I,

Alessandra and I are always big on like, you just believe the woman.

So

definitely you just believe the woman.

What do you have to say to people who

criticize you for how long it took you to come forward or for any victim to come forward?

Well, it couldn't have been that bad if she waited five years or it couldn't have been bad if she didn't tell the police right away.

Like, what do you have to say to those people?

I dare you to say it to my face.

Literally.

I literally dare you to say it to my face and

I will respond

that I wish nobody would be in a situation like this.

So they would have to understand

on their own

how long it takes to talk about things like this and how long it takes to step forward and how brave it is to step forward and to talk about that.

It's really not

in

sexual assault trials, in rape trials, victims are almost on stand.

I mean, it's almost like they have to protect themselves.

It's an excruciating process.

Well, I think what people fail to realize is that the burden of proof is on the victim, right?

Like you have to prove that this person did it.

And sometimes the cases get dismissed, not because they don't, they didn't, it didn't happen, but for a lack of evidence that it happened.

But just because there's a lack of evidence doesn't mean that it didn't happen at all.

And that's where, you know, in sexual assault cases, I feel like there's a big

miscommunication, I guess, or a misunderstanding.

Just because there's a lack of evidence doesn't mean, so how do I prove that this happened to me 10 years ago?

Yeah.

And, you know what I mean?

Yeah, so

the general public will be like, Well, then it didn't happen if there's no proof.

Well, how do you want me to prove this?

Yeah, it's not like we're taking pictures and video twice

after sexual assault.

What was the process of coming to terms with the fact that you were sexually assaulted?

Was there ever a point where you were like, Was I sexually assaulted?

Like it was more of a question?

Of course, yeah, you question yourself.

I mean, I question myself all the time, and

I think that really what like

grounded me

in a way of thinking that

it wasn't my fault and that I was raped

was when

I started to experience domestic violence from my husband.

And

this itself was a very difficult process because at the beginning, we were married for seven years and at the beginning I didn't,

make it less horrible than it was.

Then I tried to explain him to, let's say, others that saw that he's angry or upset.

Like my mom saw it, my sister saw it, and my mom would tell me to leave him.

And then at the beginning, I would just say that, oh no, he's just stressed.

It's just a back problem.

It's whatever, whatever, whatever.

But then, you know, when the physical violence started to come in, when I saw my dog being scared of him

I started to you know understand that I'm a victim of domestic violence and that was really hard because I was working as a psychologist I was doing great you know my practice was growing then the TV the press came in

to my life as a part of you know my my my work

and admitting that you know, I'm a victim of domestic violence was hard.

Right.

It was hard.

But then you also were like, I also am a victim of sexual assault.

I'm also a victim of sexual assault.

And that these two things combined were almost like

it made me feel

sometimes I overthink, but it made me think that, feel and think that people might be

maybe believing less in my story by knowing that, oh, so she was assaulted and she was raped and she was, you know what I mean?

Like that all these things happened to her and, you know, and yet they did.

They did.

Unfortunately, they did.

I don't even know what to say because I also

have thought that way about myself, you know?

And then you feel like, am I damaged goods?

Like I can't be whole because all these things happened to me.

Yeah.

And that's hard too.

How would you try to change someone's mind or would you try to change their mind if someone said that to you?

Like, oh, all of that happened to you?

You mean that, or how to help women?

Both, I guess.

True.

How to help women?

Well, if someone would say that to me right now, I would just say, fuck off.

I don't care about your opinion and I don't want to talk to you.

That's it.

You know, getting older brings the comfort of,

you know, not arguing

with certain people.

If for you one plus one is five have a good day yeah

i'm not involved in that yeah but to women what i would say is definitely please please please talk to a professional even you know what the

the suicide uh line right

hotline or something like this like talk to someone because

worst part of that was having battles in my head.

So I was fighting my own battles, right?

In my head.

Am I crazy?

Is this okay?

Can he do that?

How can I get out of it?

And I was at the beginning, I was terrified when I was when I made the decision to come here.

My son was two,

and you know, suddenly I'm a single mom with a two-year-old, and two and three are tough years.

Yeah, right?

Yes, you're not sure if you're losing your mind or he's losing his mind, or we are all losing our minds.

But,

but, yeah, and so suddenly, like, I had to face everything that I was scared of.

Right.

Support myself,

only

count on myself because there's no one around.

But

for sure, it was the best decision of my life to come here to participate in the trial and to be able to be an advocate right now for

other women.

Did your experience and your education in psychology help you with any of that?

Like even just battling your own internal conflicts?

Did that help give you any insight for how to still push forward through all of this yes for sure for sure and you know I mean as a therapist I learned a lot from my patients

and just

I mean psychotherapy

like if once you jump on a bike and you learn how to bike you can you know you will never forget that

so all these years when I was working in office with patients

it just made me understand how

people's minds navigate.

So that for sure really helps in life in general.

For sure.

And were you the youngest one through all of this?

I believe so, yes.

What was that like?

I hated actually the

articles that were titled like youngest victim of Harvey Weinstein because it's you know it's nothing to be proud of

and you know I wish that

nothing like this would ever happen to a 16-year-old girl or a 15 or a teenager or to any woman, but you know what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

But I guess that, you know, it just proved that,

I mean, this is basically like being a pedophile.

Yeah.

So, and if it happened to you, I mean, how many other girls could it have happened to that haven't, you know, come forward, especially if they're young.

Yeah.

I mean, it took a lot of courage for you to come forward.

So.

yeah and

talking about the age was not

was definitely not something pleasurable, right?

Right.

Did the courts team the first trial miss trial?

Yeah, the first trial they

reversed the verdict, right?

Why?

Because

they said that

Poor Harvey had an unfair trial because

there were Molina witnesses.

Molina witnesses are

women that he can't be charged

on the crimes, probably because of statue of limitations or some other stuff, but they show pattern of behavior.

Right.

And so there are, I think, three women that he was supposed to be charged on, and he was charged on, and three women that were Molina witnesses.

So then the judges decided that

because the Molina witnesses were there, he had an unfair trial because it portrayed him in a worse light than he might have been.

But that was his pattern of behavior.

So I feel like...

So then you had to relive the trial again.

Yes.

Can you walk us through

your mentality at that time?

I mean, last year when I heard that his verdict was

overturned, it was horrible.

It really felt like,

what are we doing?

Right.

Bill Cosby is out.

Jeffrey Epstein is dead.

So everyone just gets away with it.

They're getting a stop on the risk.

And now, you know,

the president said that he might pardon Diddy or that he's thinking about that.

Oh, I didn't even hear that.

So when you hear things.

I mean, he didn't say he will, but

for sure.

But so when you hear about cases like the Diddy, you know, he didn't get charged for all the things that he should have, in my opinion, should have been charged for.

So does that re-trigger you?

Does it bring up past traumas for you?

It actually makes me angry and it makes me want to do something about that.

Right.

Because, you know,

one person can change the world, but if we gather and we have, we do some things together to make, you know, others understand that you cannot commit these crimes.

Because that's actually what's frightening for me.

people will see, if men will see that they are getting away with that, then there's less fear of getting caught right and there's less fear of you know going to trial because they might think okay well worse come to worse i'm gonna spend uh you know a month in courtroom and then i'll get out exactly like we don't want to send that message no and you would think they wouldn't want to make a uh

an example out of somebody so that they don't want to do it but they keep letting all these people off the hook and that's so frustrating yeah it really is during the retrial hardy weinstein was acquitted of your charges is that right?

Yeah.

Can you explain the circumstances around that and

why he was acquitted of that?

I mean, from what

we overheard from some jurors,

it's because of my sister and the journal that she gave.

But the journal was, correct me if I'm wrong, obviously, an AA journal.

Yes.

So that's

Alcoholics Anonymous.

Is that right?

So you struggled with alcohol.

yes and your journal so it was from 2014 okay um or 13 i don't know that's when i got sober um

and

so it was a journal that you know describes people that have you know hurt you and what was your part in it and

what could be done differently uh and things like that

i told in in front of the grand jury that I never shared anything about Harvey Weinstein up until 2017.

Okay.

So in the journal I wrote some things about Harvey but I didn't write about sexual assault because first of all the sponsor that I had was working in the film industry and second of all I was terrified of the thought of, you know, sharing this with anyone.

On in paper.

Especially on paper.

Right, right, right.

Of course.

So there are two other men that were aggressive towards me, but,

you know, it's basically

they were sexually aggressive, but nothing happened, and I never saw them again.

So it was a completely different story.

And there is not, there were not producers or actors or whatever, not anyone famous, just some people in my life.

And

that was really twisted on the stand.

And I was asking, where are all my other journals?

My diaries, sorry, sorry, my diaries.

In my diaries, which were only kept for me, I wrote about Harvey.

And

they were not admitted in court?

No.

My sister just picked this one and gave this one.

So could your team have brought in your other diaries or you didn't have access to them?

I didn't have access to them.

They're in Poland.

So it's a lack of the evidence because you didn't write about it, but it's not...

I don't understand how they could use it simply because you didn't write in it.

First of all, what was really

horrible was that

I don't know if you're familiar with AA, but AA or NA

are

so

it should never be brought in court.

That's what I'm trying to say.

Right, like you wouldn't.

Because there are names also of other people, and they were read publicly out loud, and it was just, it was horrible.

I think you, it's hard to like get your...

therapist notes like into court yeah from my understanding so that should be the same like a or NA should be completely private.

Well, that was their angle.

They tried to portray me as someone who was looking for fame and would do everything to get famous.

Did you not have any type of relationship with your sister from the point that she

did this?

Or were you sort of talking because you didn't know?

That's when our way started to really go

separate.

And I have not spoken to her.

Do you guys have any other siblings?

No.

Just you two?

Yeah.

Which is even more hurtful, I feel.

Yeah.

I mean, no, but basically right now, I have no desire to talk to her again.

And I don't think you can be blamed for that at all.

Yeah.

This obviously opens a bigger conversation surrounding men with power.

So what do you think can be changed in the modeling industry, the acting industry, and how much power we give to these men?

Well, first of all,

right now I understand that, but if you want to be in a, which is tricky for

show business because a lot of you know work relationships are connected with friendships and you know that's how people operate.

But especially if you're new in the business and you're starting to, you're trying to get your foot in the door and trying to break through,

only professional contacts, really.

Like if I could say this to my younger self, I would want to.

Only professional contacts, only meetings in agencies when you want to do reading or whatever else.

And then I really would like to see more psychologists working with modeling agencies and

acting agencies, I guess.

Yeah.

Because,

I mean, it's more understandable, I guess, for people that for acting most of actors have psychologists or psychotherapists, right?

And they work with them because it's the inner world that you have to access in order to be able to perform.

But for models, it's not seen that way, right?

And it should be because models are, you know,

it's a hard work.

Sometimes you

have two jobs in a day, you go from one place to another during fashion weeks, you know, tons of fashion shoots.

Then there's so much rejection also.

And girls have to deal with it, girls and boys have to deal with it, have to process it.

So I think that definitely psychologists and

really like sending men with power a message that you won't get away with it.

The silver lining is that both Harvey or Diddy

doesn't matter.

Well, of course it matters if they are in jail or not, but their careers are hopefully done.

Hopefully done.

Hopefully.

I mean, at least for Harvey.

I don't know about Diddy though.

I think there are people who are

skeptical.

Yeah.

Because

unfortunately, Cassie,

I mean, people were worse to Cassie than to him.

Like talking about her or in internet, writing about her.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's scary because we saw all of that play out on video.

Oh, my God.

What do you have to say to any victims that are facing, you know, an internal conflict of whether to come forward or not?

Like, what advice could you give on how to come forward about sexual assault?

I would

say that sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger, being, for example, a counselor or

someone like on a hotline, at first to try to ease in the situation of accepting that this happened.

Okay.

And it's not my fault.

This happened and it's not my fault.

And right now, I need help.

And

the reason why I'm saying that is that sometimes when we talk to a stranger, being like a counselor that you just met, or you know, it's easier to share your story because there won't be any follow-up.

Or there might be, but you know, you can always back off and be like, okay, I shared it, I don't feel good about this.

But

starting to open up is the most important thing, definitely.

And if your family seems

you know, not right for that, then yeah, then talk to someone else.

Talk to a stranger.

That's good.

I received some messages from women that are battling with

their own traumas.

And

yeah,

I think that

it's easier and it's really relieving to share it with someone.

Right now, I am back in the film industry because I have a

film production company and just produced my first big film with Jonna Hauer King and

Daniel Beckerman producing it.

I'm a very resilient person

and I hope that this also can send a message that if you have dreams you should never give up on them and sometimes you know life puts us through reroutes and that's okay.

That's okay because also this is not a a competition or this is not a race where we have to be the fastest or the strongest.

We

just have to follow our road direction and listen to the intuition

and I think that that I think that's pretty good advice.

That's what I would tell my son and yeah just

you know I could be bitter or angry but I'm not.

I still believe in kindness of people.

I still believe in love between people and in good energy and I think that's also important.

Well, we appreciate you sharing your story on Barely Famous podcast.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Hi guys, my name is Hayden and a lot of you have been asking me to start a podcast.

Okay, I'm totally kidding.

Nobody asked me to start a podcast.

The world did absolutely not need another podcast, but I wanted to because there's no place on the internet where I can yap for 30 to 45 minutes straight with my best friends, you guys, and just shoot the shit.

Talk about all of my favorite things like social media, pop culture, reality TV, influencers.

We all know I love a good influencer.

And that's what you can expect from my new podcast.

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This is a space for some real conversations with some of my favorite creators, reality stars, maybe even a celebrity or two if they answer my DM.

This is all about the world behind the curtain that I really want to share with you guys.

Allow me to ask the questions that you've been dying to know the answers to.

And allow me to tell my guests that a lot of you have been asking.

You guys can listen to, follow, rate, and review a lot of you have been asking with me, Hayden Cohen, wherever you get podcasts.

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