For nearly 20 years Rowena Chiu refused to talk about her experience working for Harvey Weinstein. When the Hollywood producer was accused of serial sexual aggression two years ago, few people in her life realised that she had her own story to tell. In fact she had been silenced by a punitive non-disclosure agreement signed after she accused Mr Weinstein of sexual assault in 1998.

“When you’ve kept a secret for 20 years, the idea of speaking out is just sheer terror,” she says. “It took time to kind of unravel the story and for me to be ready.”

Emboldened by the women who have come forward as part of the #MeToo movement and aware how few were people of colour, Ms Chiu broke her NDA and revealed her identity in She Said, a book by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, documenting their investigation into Mr Weinstein. Now that the book has been published she is ready to share the details of what happened.