Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, one of the first women to out Harvey Weinstein as a sexual predator, says she is rebuilding her life in “superfast time” after her ordeal.
In an exclusive interview with Page Six, Gutierrez — who worked with the NYPD in 2015 to try to bring down the mogul after he allegedly lured her to his office and groped her — says the scandal ruined her life and forced her to flee the US.
But she says that now Weinstein has been felled by a flurry of similar allegations by more than 80 women, her charity work, business and time with family in the Philippines have helped her recover.
“I see all good things coming right now,” she told us in Miami. “I’m getting my two years back in very superfast time and I’m super happy about it.” She says that her experience with Weinstein, and the resulting coverage, even made it difficult to date. “I had a lot of people saying, ‘I can’t go out with you because you had this kind of reputation,’ ” she told us.
Gutierrez was hosting an event in Wynwood during Art Basel Miami to raise funds for Humanility, a charity that helps street children get into orphanages. She says she threw herself into fund-raising for the organization when she returned to the Philippines, where her mother is from, amid the fallout from coming forward against Weinstein.
“My situation, my life, was the worst ever,” she said, “but I saw people in a worse situation. That’s what I want to try to do, I want to give them all the possibility I have.” Gutierrez — who also once escaped from one of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s notorious “bunga bunga” sex parties — is also not shying away from Hollywood. She’s working on a movie with Archstone Pictures about Berlusconi, but has to wait for the pol’s ongoing trial to end.
She also runs Kama, a beach club for artists in the Philippines, and has returned to New York.
“Since I was a kid I always wanted to live in America and now I’m back,” she told us. “My dreams are here. This is where I feel home and hopefully they’re gonna welcome me.”