Harvey Weinstein: The Rikers Interview by Maer Roshan - Addiction/Recovery eBulletin

JUST ANOTHER SEX ADDICT? –

Mar. 10, 2026 – Getting into Rikers is only slightly easier than breaking out of it. The Uber dropped us off at a parking lot outside the facility, where we waited in the frigid cold for a prison official to pick us up. Then, after an obstacle course of barbed-wire gates and metal detectors, we arrived at the crumbling cinder-block structure that Weinstein has called home for the better part of two years.

Over the past few years, the 73-year-old has been hospitalized for a laundry list of maladies: diabetes, a heart operation, cancer. Spinal stenosis keeps him in a wheelchair most of the time. Because of his infirmities, he is housed in a medical unit of the jail, away from the general population. Safety concerns keep him confined to his cell for 23 hours a day.

For me, this visit also was something of a reunion. I first encountered him in 1999, when I worked as editorial director of Talk magazine, the ill-fated monthly that Weinstein launched with the legendary editor Tina Brown. Our first meeting was not auspicious. I arrived at work to find an ashen-faced Tina slumped on a chaise in her office as Harvey, phoning in from a yacht trip to Capri, screamed profanities at her from a speakerphone.

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