Disgraced Producer Harvey Weinstein Says He Was Punched 'Hard in the Face' by Fellow Inmate at Rikers Island

In a jailhouse interview published in The Hollywood Reporter on March 10, disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein claimed he was punched in the face by a fellow inmate at Rikers Island.

The altercation reportedly occurred while Weinstein was waiting to use the prison phone.

The 73-year-old producer asked the inmate in front of him if he was finished; the man responded by punching him "hard in the face.”

Weinstein stated he fell to the floor and was "bleeding everywhere.”

“I fell on the floor, bleeding everywhere,” he said. “I was hurt really badly. The cops asked me who had done it, but I couldn’t say. You can’t be a rat. That’s the law of the jungle.”

Best known for producing and distributing landmark independent films, including Pulp Fiction, Good Will Hunting and Shakespeare in Love, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Picture, Weinstein claims he now spends 23 hours a day confined to his cell for his own safety.

He is currently serving multiple prison sentences for s-- crimes and claims he spends most of his time alone. However, he said that most prisoners only want to talk about Pulp Fiction's writer/director Quentin Tarantino.

“I spend almost all of it in my cell. Sometimes I’ll go out in the wheelchair just to get some air, but that’s only half an hour. Mostly, I’m in my cell 23 hours a day. I don’t have any human contact other than with the guards,” he complained.

The mogul, who told THR he never knew dead financier Jeffrey Epstein, said that socializing in prison is life-threatening.

“It’s too dangerous for me to be around anyone else. Other inmates get to go to the yard. But every time I’m out there, I feel like I’m under siege,” Weinstein said.

He was convicted on one count of a criminal sexual act against producer Miriam Haley, was acquitted on a separate charge involving former model Kaja Sokola, and a mistrial was declared on a third charge of rape involving actress Jessica Mann after the jury reached a deadlock.

A new trial for the unresolved rape charge is scheduled to begin on April 14.

Once a dominant figure in Hollywood as co-founder of Miramax and The Weinstein Company, his career collapsed in 2017 following dozens of allegations of sexual harassment and assault, which catalyzed the global #MeToo movement.

Currently wheelchair-bound and suffering from multiple health issues, including chronic myeloid leukemia and spinal stenosis, Weinstein is awaiting further legal proceedings following a New York appeals court decision that overturned his initial 2020 rape conviction.

He was recently convicted again on a sexual act charge in a June 2025 retrial.

Weinstein is also serving a 16-year sentence for rape and sexual assault convictions in Los Angeles. A California judge ruled this sentence must be served consecutively to his New York terms.

He denied sexually assaulting women, but admitted to THR, “Did I make a pass at some of these women unsuccessfully? Did I overplay my hand? Yes. Was I pushy or overly seductive? Yes to all of that.”

THR editor-in-chief Maer Roshan wrote that “Back then, at the apex of his career, Harvey mostly got a pass for appalling behavior.”

The father-of-five said he only speaks to two of his children and that his incarceration is something he still has a hard time accepting.

“Cold and heartless. It’s incredible to have the life that I had and the things that I did for society, and not have the leniency to deal with me in a kinder way. Whatever they think I did bad in my life, I didn’t get the death penalty,” he said.