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Harvey Weinstein Is Reportedly Treating Rehab Like a Joke

The disgraced mogul is allegedly dozing off and taking calls during group therapy sessions, and insisting "all the encounters were consensual."
Drew Schwartz
Brooklyn, US
Photo by YANN COATSALIOU/AFP/Getty Images

After reportedly checking into a rehab facility in Arizona last week, Harvey Weinstein has allegedly fallen asleep during group sessions, ditched meetings to talk on his cellphone, and insisted the dozens of accusations against him are bogus.

According to Page Six, Weinstein is currently being treated for sex addiction at an outpatient facility—meaning he spends his nights in a hotel—where he's been assigned a therapist and asked to participate in group counseling. But according to a source at the facility, Weinstein isn't exactly playing by the rules.

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"In one group therapy session, Harvey arrived 15 minutes late," the source told Page Six. "Then, when it was his turn to speak, he launched into a speech about how this is all a conspiracy against him."

The source added that during group sessions, Weinstein has been known to take calls from his cellphone and even doze off while other patients open up about their addiction.

"Harvey fell asleep in his chair. He was only woken up by the ringing of his smuggled mobile phone," the source told Page Six. "Harvey jolted awake, jumped up, immediately took the call and then ran out of the room."

Publicly, Weinstein has vowed he would work to address his decades-long legacy of alleged sexual harassment and abuse, telling the New York Times he planned to "deal with this issue head on." Just before the board of the Weinstein Company fired the disgraced mogul, he sent an email to a handful of Hollywood executives begging them to help him save his job—asking for rehab, not dismissal, as a pathway to a "second chance," Deadline reports.

"All I'm asking is let me take a leave of absence and get into heavy therapy and counseling whether it be in a facility or somewhere else," Weinstein reportedly wrote. "A lot of the allegations are false, as you know, but given therapy and counseling as other people have done, I think I'd be able to get there."

Another source who is reportedly close to Weinstein denied that he had fallen asleep or taken calls in group sessions, but told Page Six that the disgraced Hollywood mogul "insists he's not a rapist."

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"He insists he never raped or assaulted anyone, and that all the encounters were consensual," the source said.

Accusations of sexual harassment and rape against Weinstein have snowballed since the Times and the New Yorker broke the story earlier this month. Police in New York, London, and now Los Angeles have since opened investigations into the allegations against him, including a rape accusation stemming from 2013.

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Related: Rose McGowan on Sexism in Hollywood