Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, reportedly emailed Harvey Weinstein in 2007 asking for advice, an email which is now going to be used as evidence in the Weinstein trial.
Siebel Newsom sent Weinstein an email looking for advice on how to handle "bad press" amidst news that her then-boyfriend Newsom, who was mayor of San Francisco at the time, had an affair with his campaign manager's wife. The email she sent was two years after Weinstein allegedly raped and sexually assaulted her.
A judge ruled on Monday that the defense will be able to use the email as evidence. Weinstein's attorney, Mark Werksman, said of the evidence in a hearing on Monday, "Of all things you'd think a woman that is raped by Harvey Weinstein wouldn't do, it's ask him how to deal with a sex scandal."
"The fact that she comes to Mr. Weinstein for that advice indicates the friendship and companionship of Jane Doe 4 and Mr. Weinstein," he continued. "The defense will be that they had an affair, that they had consensual sex." Siebel Newsom was identified as Jane Doe 4 by the Los Angeles Times last week.
Weinstein is charged with 11 counts of rape and sexual assault involving five women and is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence for a sexual assault conviction in New York. If convicted in Los Angeles, he faces up to 140 years in prison.
One of the charges involves allegedly raping Siebel Newsom at a Beverly Hills hotel in 2004 or 2005, prior to when she met Gavin Newsom.
Who is Jennifer Siebel Newsom?
Siebel Newsom was a documentary filmmaker and actor before becoming the first partner of California. She played Juanita Carson in Mad Men and Jennifer Conover in the series Life, and she more recently played Judy in the 2017 film She's Out of His Mind.
Siebel Newsom has also produced several documentary films, including Miss Representation (2011), The Invisible War (2012), The Mask You Live In (2015) and The Great American Lie (2020).
She also directed the 2022 documentary Fair Play, a film that documents several families' journeys to find work-life balance at home.
It was also announced that a new film titled Sleeping With the Lion will star Siebel Newsom as a character named Coral.
In 2017, Siebel Newsom alleged that Weinstein assaulted her in an article she wrote for HuffPost amidst the other allegations that began to come out during that time, which has since been deemed the #MeToo movement.
"Based on my years in the industry and unfortunately, my own personal experience with Harvey Weinstein, I can tell you that I believe every single word that was written in the extremely disturbing, but not all that shocking, New York Times piece published yesterday. Not all that shocking because very similar things happened to me," she wrote at the time.
However, a year ago, actress Rose McGowan—while publicly endorsing Larry Elder for California's gubernatorial recall election, which he lost to Newsom—said that Siebel Newsom attempted to silence her about Weinstein.
McGowan was a leading figure in the #MeToo movement and said that in 2017, a few months before the New York Times article debuted with several allegations of assault against Weinstein, Siebel Newsom reached out to her on behalf of David Boies, Weinstein's lawyer at the time.
"This woman I don't know, some blond lady with a last name of Newsom, cold calls me and is like, 'David Boies wants to know what it would take to make you happy,'" McGowan told The Rubin Report host Dave Rubin in 2021.
A spokesperson for Siebel Newsom told Newsweek in a previous report, "What is being alleged is a complete fabrication. It's disappointing but not surprising to see political opponents launch these false attacks just days before the election. Their limited correspondence has been strictly as fellow survivors of sexual assault and in Jennifer's former capacity leading the Representation Project, an organization that fights limiting gender stereotypes and norms."
Newsweek reached out to a representative for Siebel Newsom for additional comment.
Specialists from the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) sexual assault hotline are available 24/7 via phone (1 (800) 656-4673) and online chat. Additional support from the group is also accessible via the mobile app.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Emma Mayer is a Newsweek Culture Writer based in Wyoming. Her focus is reporting on celebrities, books, movies, and music. ... Read more
