Aishwarya's former manager talks shutting down 'pig' Harvey Weinstein

In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct scandal, there have been a dizzying number of insiders claiming that they knew nothing about the disgraced producer's predatory reputation with women in the film industry. Simone Sheffield isn't one of them.

Sheffield was the talent manager for Aishwarya Rai one of India's best-known actresses, who held the Miss World title and was once dubbed the "the most beautiful woman in the world. And a day after the second New York Times piece came out, with Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie also claiming that they had been sexually harassed by Weinstein, and the brutal New Yorker expos, Sheffield posted about her experience with the "big bully pig in the comments section of a Variety story about Cara Delevingne coming forward as an accuser. In an industry where a lot of people feared Weinstein, Sheffield clearly didn't, as her kiss-my-you-know-what retort makes clear.

Here's what she wrote, in part: "I use to manage Indian actress Aishwarya Rai. While dealing with Harvey I found it comical how hard he tried to get Aishwarya alone. But he was a pig... looked and acted like a big bully pig'... He asked me to leave the meeting numerous times and I politely declined. When we were leaving his office he cornered me and said, What do I have to do to get her alone?' I told him to kiss my black ass.' When Ash and I returned to our hotel, I sent Harvey a steel pig trough filled with DIET COKE as a thank you gift for the meeting. Yes, we did do business and yes, he eventually threatened me. Told me I'd never work in this business, blah blah blah...what I said to him I can't print. But you can be sure, I never gave him the opportunity to even breathe on my client.

In verifying that she was the one who posted the comment on Variety, Yahoo Lifestyle spoke with Sheffield, the president of Canyon Entertainment, who was reeling over the newer developments in the saga, including the numerous sexual assault allegations from Rose McGowan and others.

"If I had known rape was involved, that would change the whole story, Sheffield says. "No one [I worked with] would have even met Harvey. Creeps are creeps. Creeps never fazed me. They are everywhere. But to sit with one? Rape [allegations] changed the whole thing for me.

Aishwarya Rai's former talent manager, Simone Sheffield. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for NAACP)

With so many people pleading ignorance when it came to Weinstein's reputation, we were curious how she had his number early on. "I think most folks in town heard stories, Sheffield tells Yahoo Lifestyle. "Most folks who ever dealt with him had a story. Men were verbally abused. Women got it worse. But his money, power, excellent choice in marvelous material kept folks coming back. I can't be the only manager in town that either accompanied their client, or at least informed their client about his reported history. ... I wish someone let these women know not to go to his hotel room. Make his fat ass go down to the lobby.

Because she was clued in, she was present during any interaction Rai had with Weinstein and the meeting she referenced took place in his New York office, not a hotel room. "She would have been a sitting duck, Sheffield says of Rai, who's a movie megastar in her homeland and who appeared in 2004's Bride & Prejudice, a Bollywood-style adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice, which was distributed by Weinstein's Miramax. "I was on him like white on rice. Not on my watch.

https://www.yahoo.com/style/aishwarya-rais-former-manager-talks-shutting-pig-harvey-weinstein-threats-didnt-bother-234821243.html