Oprah Winfrey: 'I knew Harvey Weinstein was a big bully'

Harvey Weinstein tried to bully Oprah Winfrey into booking the stars of his movies for her talk show, the media mogul has revealed.

In a new podcast chat with Gwyneth Paltrow, one of the disgraced producer's alleged harassment victims, the 64-year-old maintains she was always friendly towards Harvey, even though she knew he was less than kind to his staff and colleagues.

"What I knew was Harvey was a bully," she told the Oscar winner in the inaugural goop Podcast, which streamed on Thursday (08Mar18), insisting she knew nothing of his alleged sexual misconduct, which was exposed in New York Times and New Yorker articles published in October (17).

"I was friendly with Harvey... Of course, I didn't know any of this was going on," she said.

Gwyneth accused Weinstein of sexual harassment last year (17), claiming he tried to romance her during the filming of 1996 movie Emma.

The producer recently hit back at her claims in a response to a class action lawsuit, in which he claimed the star wasn't "offended" by anything that happened while they worked on the movie, making it clear she returned to star in his movie Shakespeare in Love, which earned her an Oscar.

Oprah also told Paltrow she hopes the fall-out from the Weinstein scandal will change showbusiness for the better.

She added, "I think where this movement will eventually lead us to is not accepting any kind of behaviour that disparages you as a human being: 'Why am I willing to put up with an a**hole? Not only am I not going to take your sexual harassment, I'm not going to take any of your bulls**t, period.'"