“To tell you the truth, I chalked it up to a ‘Mad Men’-era version of the boss chasing the secretary around the desk.
“I’m not saying that’s okay. That’s how I heard it… in that category. There was never any talk of rape or anything like that.”
After collaborating on nine movies, Tarantino cut ties with the disgraced movie mogul in 2017 when Weinstein faced several allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
“The reason I didn’t [say something to Weinstein] was because that’s a real hard conversation to have,” Tarantino explained.
“I felt it was pathetic. I felt what he was doing was pathetic and I didn’t want to deal with his pathetic-ness.”
He continued: “I didn’t think it was, ‘Okay, you do this for me or you’re not going to get this movie.’ I never heard any actresses say anything like that.
“It was just, you know, ‘Don’t get in the back of a limo with him.’ It was easy to compartmentalise that to some degree.
“Anyway, I feel bad about. What I feel bad about is I feel bad that I did not have a man-to-man talk with him about it.”
Back in 2017, the Kill Bill director revealed that his former girlfriend Mira Sorvino told him about Weinstein’s sexual harassment.
“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he said at the time.
“There was more to it than just the normal rumours, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.
“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard. If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”
Last year, Tarantino appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience and said he wished he had confronted Weinstein about the misconduct allegations, which were widely considered “open secrets.”
“I wish I had sat [Harvey] down and gone, ‘Harvey, you can’t do this, you’re gonna f**k up everything,’” he said.
“Maybe his brother Bob [did], but I don’t think anybody talked to him about it. And the thing about it is everybody who was in his orbit knew about it.
“Probably they didn’t know anything about rapes, but they had heard things.”
Weinstein is currently serving a 23-year sentence for rape and sexual assault in New York.
He is facing charges for allegedly sexually assaulting four women in Los Angeles between 2004 and 2013.
If convicted on all counts, he faces a maximum sentence of 65 years to life in prison.