Meet Emily Nestor — Former Weinstein Company Temp Leading Sexual Harassment Fight Against Him
She is one of the dozens of women who say Harvey Weinstein harassed her.
Getty Emily Nestor was considering a career in the entertainment industry in 2014. She took a temp job answering phones at the Weinstein Company, the legendary production studio headed by Harvey Weinstein. As soon as she got there, other women began warning her about Harvey. They said she was "his type" and that he might single her out.
Once the mogul spotted her, he took an immediate interest and started trying to get her alone. He asked her repeatedly to meet with him outside the office and she finally agreed to have coffee with him the following day. The meeting turned into what she described as the "most excruciating...hour of her life" as she tried to fend off advances by Weinstein. The whole time, he told her how powerful he was and all the ways he could boost her career. In the moment, she realized that it also meant he could end her career before it even began.
Later, Nestor came forward with her story and her interview was part of the Pulitzer winning article by Ronan Farrow that brought Weinstein down once and for all. The story was originally being worked on for NBC but the network paused it indefinitely, much to the frustration of Farrow and all his sources. Later, he published it in The New Yorker. NBC continues to suggest it hadn't met their journalistic standards, despite the accolades it ultimately received. For the record, The New Yorker published the article that NBC had decided not to about six weeks later, after a thorough fact-checking process.
Now, Nestor is defending Farrow's reporting and his new book Catch and Kill.
Who is Emily Nestor? Read on for all the details.
1. Considering going into entertainment
At 25, Emily Nestor was a recent law school graduate and was back in the classroom studying business. She had the idea that she might want to work in the entertainment industry and she took a temp job working at the front desk of the Weinstein Company in 2014. On her very first day, two employees commented that she was "Harvey's type," according to the New Yorker. As soon as Weinstein spotted her, he proved that prediction true. He noted that she was pretty and told his staff to clear a room so he could talk to her alone. He insisted that she write down her number so he could contact her later.
Catch and Kill tells the whole story of reporting on Weinstein.
2. "I dressed very frumpy"
Weinstein tried to convince Nestor to meet him for drinks at his hotel that evening but she declined. He continued to push and she finally suggested a very early meeting over coffee. She thought he wouldn't go for it but, to her surprise, he accepted. She already had a sense that Weinstein was trouble and she asked friends in the industry what they knew about him. They warned her about his reputation for making unwanted sexual advances. She tried to stave off such a situation by downplaying her appearance for the meeting. "I dressed very frumpy," she remembered.
3. “The most excruciating and uncomfortable hour of my life.”
Her dowdy outfit didn't stop Weinstein from hitting on her. She told Farrow about all the ways he tried to coerce her into sex. "After Weinstein offered her career help, she said, he began to boast about his sexual liaisons with other women, including famous actresses. 'He said, "You know, we could have a lot of fun,"' Nestor recalled. '"I could put you in my London office, and you could work there and you could be my girlfriend."' She declined. He asked to hold her hand; she said no," Farrow writes. "In Nestor’s account of the exchange, Weinstein said, 'Oh, the girls always say no. You know, "No, no." And then they have a beer or two and then they’re throwing themselves at me.' In a tone that Nestor described as 'very weirdly proud,' Weinstein added 'that he’d never had to do anything like Bill Cosby.' She assumed that he meant he’d never drugged a woman. 'It’s just a bizarre thing to be so proud of,' she said. 'That you’ve never had to resort to doing that. It was just so far removed from reality and normal rules of consent.'"
4. Textbook sexual harassment
Nestor was not confused about what was going on. She could easily recognize that what Weinstein was doing was harassment by any definition. "'Textbook sexual harassment' was how Nestor described Weinstein’s behavior to me," Farrow wrote. “'It’s a pretty clear case of sexual harassment when your superior, the C.E.O., asks one of their inferiors, a temp, to have sex with them, essentially in exchange for mentorship.'” She recalled refusing his advances at least a dozen times. "No" did not mean ‘no’ to him,” she said. 'I was very aware of how inappropriate it was. But I felt trapped.'”
5. She tried to report it
After the breakfast meeting, Weinstein kept up the unwanted attention in the workplace and Nestor grew increasingly alarmed. Farrow writes that she said “I was very afraid of him. And I knew how well connected he was. And how if I pissed him off then I could never have a career in that industry.” She told a friend about her misgivings and the friend reported the situation to the Weinstein Company's office of human resources. Nothing ever happened, however. Human resources made it clear to Nestor that Weinstein would be informed of anything she did and she didn't think it was worth it. But internal company documents back up her story about what Weinstein said to her and her attempts to share the information, according to the New York Times.
She ended up leaving the company after her temporary assignment ended and she left the entire industry after that. “I was definitely traumatized for a while, in terms of feeling so harassed and frightened,” she said to Farrow. “It made me feel incredibly discouraged that this could be something that happens on a regular basis. I actually decided not to go into entertainment because of this incident.”
6. Farrow vs. NBC
Nestor was one of the women willing to use her name in Farrow's reporting when he brought it to NBC for approval. However, the network put a hold on airing the story. Later, leadership would say that Farrow's sourcing was insufficient and they didn't run the story because he didn't have people willing to put their names behind their accusations. At the same time, the network was facing pressure from Weinstein himself to put the brakes on the report.
Even after Farrow took the story to the New Yorker where it won the Pulitzer, NBC has insisted that his work was subpar when he brought it to them.
The story ran in the New Yorker in 2017.
7. Nestor stands by Farrow
After NBC tried to explain away their treatment of the story, Nestor wrote a blistering statement saying their version of events was untrue. "I am immensely disappointed in, but not surprised, to read NBC's recent comments about Ronan Farrow's work on the Weinstein story. Notably absent in the list of seven women (Asia Argento, Mira Sorvino, Rosanna Arquette, Lucia Evans, Emma de Caunes, Jessica Barth, and Sophie Dix) they claim were unwilling to be identified from The New Yorker story are two women who had been involved in Farrow's reporting while at NBC, Ambra Gutierrez and myself," Nestor wrote. "Ambra had always been willing to allow Farrow to identify her by name and use the recording of her, and I had filmed an interview in silhouette. After Rose McGowan pulled out of the story, realizing that the story was in peril of not being made public at all, Farrow and I discussed and I had tentatively offered either to attach my name to the interview in silhouette or potentially even re-shoot the interview with my face visible. However, they were not interested in this interview."
"I feel forever indebted to Farrow for finding a platform from which my voice and the voices of other victims could be heard," she continued. "Beyond which, I am even more grateful that he handled himself throughout with integrity, professionalism, strength, kindness and honesty. To attempt to impugn his character or his conduct in his tireless work to publish this story is shameful."
Nestor has never wavered in her story about Weinstein and she has never stopped standing by Ronan Farrow.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. Her work has been seen at Ravishly, Babble, Scary Mommy, The Mid, Redbook online, and The Broad Side. She is the creator of the blog Stay at Home Pundit and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.