The woman whose testimony put predator Harvey Weinstein behind bars for an additional 16 years has until now been known only as “Jane Doe 1.”
But now, she’s ready to tell her story.
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, former actress and mother of three Evgenia Chernyshova revealed that the disgraced media mogul and serial sexual predator had raped her in a hotel room in Beverly Hills in 2013, opening up about the trauma she suffered and her struggle for justice in the years afterward.
“I’m tired of hiding,” Chernyshova, 43, said. “I want my life back. I’m Evgeniya, I’ve been raped. This is my story.”
On Thursday, Weinstein received a 16-year sentence in Los Angeles for forcible rape, forcible oral copulation, and penetration by a foreign object on top of a 30-year sentence he is currently serving for a conviction in New York. Weinstein, 70, who has long denied all allegations against him, will now almost certainly die in jail.
Chernyshova said she got the news while in the car with her 23-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son.
“I had to ask my daughter if I understood the English correctly,” Chernyshova, who was born in Siberia, said. “She’s like, ‘Why are you crying, mom? It’s good.’”
Of the four women who accused Weinstein of rape in Los Angeles, Chernyshova’s charge was the only one that led to a conviction.
“I believe all of the victims who testified,” Chernyshova said. “All of them. And I want to say this—this is not only my victory, this is our victory.”
Chernyshova’s harrowing testimony revealed her nightmare began when she met Weinstein at a red-carpet event at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood. She did not think much of the encounter until she received a call from the front desk at her hotel later that night saying Weinstein was there to see her.
Chernyshova said opening the door when Weinstein knocked was “the thing I have regretted for the last 10 years.”
When Weinstein entered the room, Chernyshova said she saw that “something clicked, like a change in his eyes.” She became increasingly frightened as she tried to explain to Weinstein that she was married, had children, and was not interested in him.
“He opened his pants, and I became hysterical,” she said. “I was continuing to show my kids’ pictures, to try to convince him that, ‘I have kids, please do not do that.’ But he did what he did. He assaulted me in the bedroom, and then he dragged me to the bathroom and he raped me there.”
Chernyshova described a yearslong battle with depression and substance abuse in the aftermath of her assault, during which she separated from her husband.
It was a conversation with her daughter, Maria, and a bond over shared trauma that finally drove Evgeniya to come forward with her story, she said. When Maria, then 16, told her mother that she had been sexually assaulted by a boy at school, the two realized just how much they understood each other and made a momentous agreement.
“I told her that there was only one condition that I was gonna be able to [report my case], and that’s if she also came forward with her case,” Maria said.
Chernyshova’s call to trial attorney Dave Ring was just the first step in an excruciating yearslong process that included being brutally cross-examined by Weinstein’s attorneys. But Chernyshova said facing her rapist and bringing him to justice has made her feel “free.”
“I finally have a voice and I can speak,” Chernyshova said. “I see my future as beautiful. It’s a good one.”
