Harvey Weinstein’s wife Georgia Chapman announces she’s leaving him

HARVEY Weinstein’s wife Georgina Chapman has announced she is leaving her husband, following allegations he sexually harassed dozens of women.

This is the first time Chapman, the British fashion designer behind the luxury label Marchesa, has addressed the accusations made against her husband by The New York Times.

The newspaper alleges Weinstein sexually harassed and initiated “unwanted physical contact” with numerous actresses and employees. He has reportedly reached at least eight legal settlements with different women.

Yesterday Weinstein was fired by the board of his own production business, The Weinstein Company.

“My heart breaks for all the women who have suffered tremendous pain because of these unforgivable actions,” Chapman said in a statement to People magazine.

“I have chosen to leave my husband. Caring for my young children is my first priority and I ask the media for privacy at this time.”

Weinstein, 65, and Chapman, 41, married in 2007 and have two children together — India Pearl, 7, and Dashiell Max Robert, 4.

Just a few days ago Weinstein told the New York Post that he had his wife’s full support.

“She stands 100 per cent behind me. Georgina and I have talked about this at length,” Weinstein said

“Georgina will be with Lisa [lawyer Lisa Bloom, who announced this week she is no longer representing Weinstein] and others kicking my ass to be a better human being and to apologise to people for my bad behaviour, to say I’m sorry, and to absolutely mean it.”

The couple met at a party in 2004 and soon moved in to a $US7 million loft in New York City, shortly after Weinstein divorced his first wife of 17 years, Eve Chilton, and mother to his first three children.

“I had no idea who he was,” Chapman told Vogue of their first meeting. “He’s not a person you can sort of ignore or brush off. He’s incredibly charming and so charismatic, it sort of draws you in.”

“We were friends and now we have moved on to this nice situation,” Weinstein said of Chapman at the 2005 Golden Globes.

Prior to today’s statement, the only hint we’ve seen of Chapman’s response her husband’s allegedly wandering eye is a 2015 report in the New York Daily News that she was “furious” over allegations Weinstein groped an Italian model.

“She’s furious!” a socialite who frequently chats with the couple told the publication. “She thinks it’s embarrassing not only to her, but to their kids.

“She doesn’t want this to interrupt her business or embarrass the kids any more than it already has,” the source said.

Chapman has constantly had to defend herself against claims the enormous success of her high fashion label is down to Weinstein’s influence.

“Marchesa’s breathtaking success has the fashion world talking — and rolling its eyes too. Just how much of that success, observers wonder, is due to the Harvey Factor?” asked the Los Angeles Times.

“Maybe I helped, but just very, very little, with Renée Zellweger,” Weinstein told Vogue, of his decision to place the actress in a Marchesa gown for the London premiere of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason in 2004, the same year he and Chapman started dating.

“How did the most sought-after actress of the day come to catapult such an anonymous brand ... out of obscurity? It wasn’t purely the appeal of hand embroidery,” mused a reporter who profiled Chapman in 2013.

“And when Cate Blanchett turned up at the Rome premiere of The Aviator, another Weinstein-backed film, in a cream-and-gold version of the same dress, tongues began to wag.”

But Chapman says her success is of her own making.

“It’s no different from being in school and someone says something,” Chapman told Vogue. “Your whole life is filled with things like that. There is a backlash. But whatever people say about Harvey to me, I want them to look at the dresses.”