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NY Times: Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Link.

Is The New York Times about to expose damaging information on Harvey Weinstein?

The Weinstein Co. film and television mogul has enlisted an army of attorneys and crisis managers in recent weeks and has unleashed them on the Times over a planned story on his personal behavior, multiple sources familiar with the behind-the-scenes battle tell The Hollywood Reporter.

It's unclear what the Times is planning to report, but sources say the newspaper has been calling dozens of current and former employees and associates of Weinstein, going back as far as the executive's days running Miramax more than two decades ago. The reporting team is also said to have procured internal human resources documents during the investigation.

After the initial publication of this story, Harvey Weinstein offered this statement to THR: "The story sounds so good, I want to buy the movie rights."

And the Times isn't the only media outlet aggressively pursuing a story on Weinstein. NBC News correspondent Ronan Farrow also has been digging into the mogul's past for approximately a year, and Farrow is now said to be working with The New Yorker magazine on a "lengthy" piece.

Reps for Weinstein and the Times declined to comment. A spokesperson for The New Yorker told THR, "We don't comment on pieces we haven't published."

Weinstein, 65, is a polarizing figure in Hollywood. A master movie producer and marketer and a regular at the Oscars, he also is famously brash and controlling. Down and Dirty Pictures, a 2004 book on Weinstein by author Peter Biskind, described Weinstein's behavior toward employees and others in his orbit as bullying and called him an artist of "anger."

Weinstein, who runs the New York-based Weinstein Co., is no stranger to litigation, but in this case he has lawyered up in an unusually significant way.

In addition to his usual attorney David Boies, Weinstein also has engaged Lisa Bloom, a Woodland Hills, Calif.-based lawyer and television personality specializing in sexual harassment cases (and the daughter of Gloria Allred), as well as Charles Harder, the Beverly Hills-based litigator who represented Hulk Hogan in the invasion of privacy trial that brought down the Gawker website. Other lawyers also are said to be advising the mogul. "Harvey Weinstein is obviously excellent at assembling a legal team," said Bloom in a statement.

Several crisis PR consultants also are involved, according to sources.

The subject of the media outlets' reporting is said to be Weinstein himself and not the business operation of the Weinstein Co. Whether either or both publications ultimately publish a story in the face of an onslaught of pushback from Weinstein's lawyers remains to be seen.
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MOD Abuse:

kaskade said:
Decades of Sexual Harassment Accusations Against Harvey Weinstein

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html
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J

jbug617

Banned
Saw some media people on twitter that said the rumors always been there but they can never lock down the stories about them.
 
H

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
The rumors about him have been around forever. Some aren't even rumors as his way of dealing with staff has been notorious for as long as he's been in Hollywood.
 
J

jelly

Member
Producer in Hollywood. /mild shock

He does come across as friendly but I've honestly thought he could be dodgy, just has that look and his position, who knows.
 
C

Cartman86

Banned
NBC News correspondent Ronan Farrow also has been digging into the mogul's past for approximately a year, and Farrow is now said to be working with The New Yorker magazine on a "lengthy" piece.
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lol
 
D

Darth Pinche

Member
I always figured that the producer from Tropic Thunder was based on him.

y8qKXFn.gif
 
T

TangoAlphaLima

Member
jbug617 said:
Saw some media people on twitter that said the rumors always been there but they can never lock down the stories about them.
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Realyst said:
They’ve been trying to nail this guy for decades. Looks like something finally has him shook.
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HStallion said:
The rumors about him have been around forever. Some aren't even rumors as his way of dealing with staff has been notorious for as long as he's been in Hollywood.
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BUT WHAT ARE THE RUMORSSSSS???
 
G

gdt

Member
Man he’s shook.

Wonder what it is? Shit about him being a maniac wouldn’t freak him out, everyone knows that about it.

Is it inappropriate sexual stuff? But he seemed kind of jokey with his comment to THR....

Dunno.
 
S

Shauni

Member
Christ, it must be some real shit if he's lawyered up this way before the story has even broke and multiple media outlets are looking at it.
 
K

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
jelly said:
Producer in Hollywood. /mild shock

He does come across as friendly but I've honestly thought he could be dodgy, just has that look and his position, who knows.
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For real? Guy is a grade A cunt. He treats filmmakers and other people in his orbit like absolute shit.
gdt said:
Is it inappropriate sexual stuff? But he seemed kind of jokey with his comment to THR....

Dunno.
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His people initially gave no comment but he gave that comment when he saw that THR were actually publishing this story. He's trying to defuse the situation and is probably betting on the story never coming out, as he has to, because he's fucked if it does.
 
Z

Zeke

Member
NBC News correspondent Ronan Farrow also has been digging into the mogul’s past for approximately a year, and Farrow is now said to be working with The New Yorker magazine on a "lengthy" piece.
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Surely he'll break the story on gaf first, don't let us down Ronan!
 
O

oon

Banned
Hasphat'sAnts said:
Hope you guys who thought Gawker's demise was a good thing don't complain if his lawyers kill these stories.
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Gawker wasn't the be-all and end-all of entertainment reporting. I'm sure other news organizations can pick up the slack without choosing to publish sex tapes.
 
K

kevin1025

Banned
Unknown Soldier said:
He is a total douchebag who is known for trying to bully directors by censoring their films. I hope they take him down.
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It always bothered me, the stories of how he sweet talked directors and producers about how much he loves their film, and then the second he buys it, shreds it to pieces.

This, of course, sounds far worse if it's the rumors mentioned in the thread here.
 
K

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
kevin1025 said:
It always bothered me, the stories of how he sweet talked directors and producers about how much he loves their film, and then the second he buys it, shreds it to pieces.

This, of course, sounds far worse if it's the rumors mentioned in the thread here.
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It is indicative of being a bad person, so hearing something like this brewing isn't so surprising.
 
G

Gentleman Jack

Member
Unknown Soldier said:
He is a total douchebag who is known for trying to bully directors by censoring their films. I hope they take him down.
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The Legend of Harvey Scissorhands

This was January 1996, two months before an Oscar ceremony in which the only Miramax films to really contend would be Mighty Aphrodite (two nominations, one win) and Il Postino (five nominations, four losses). This must have felt like a step backward after the 1995 ceremony, in which Miramax had five films competing in the major categories at an event that was defined by the dichotomy between the bloated, square Hollywood status quo and the cool, Euro-inflected alternative represented by Team Miramax. Pulp Fiction vs. Forrest Gump was just the tip of the iceberg: There’s getting a Best Picture nomination for the first indie film to gross more than $100 million, and then there are real baller moves like getting two nominations for Krzysztof Kieślowski and helping to invent Kate Winslet and Peter Jackson by forcing Heavenly Creatures into the conversation. Less than a year later, Harvey must have felt like he was falling behind in the dick-measuring contest that was mid-1990s indie-to-mainstream crossover film; he smelled Oscars on Sling Blade and pounced.

He also had gotten out his checkbook — and had agreed to give Thornton final cut — before he finished watching the movie. The very next day, feeling a wave of overspender’s panic if not flat-out buyer’s remorse, Harvey tried to rescind this untested director’s final cut and asked Thornton to cut 20 minutes. Thornton refused, so Weinstein refused to accept delivery of the film — and thus refused to pay for it — until the running time was truncated. According to Elwes, at one point Weinstein called Thornton at home in the middle of the night, and the following exchange ensued:

HARVEY: I’m a big, fat, hairy Jew worth $180 million and I can do whatever I want! I’m gonna sell the picture to HBO. You’re not gonna get a Best Picture.

BILLY BOB: Ah don’t give a sheet. Ah made the movie fo’ me, not fo’ anyone else, ah’ve seen it and I’ve enjoyed it, so fuck yuh. Ah’m going to stick a fork in yo’ neck, motherfucka. Yuh not so tough, ah’m Billy Bob, ah’m gonna kick yuh ass, take yuh out to the wagon and whup your butt!

HARVEY: You’re a redneck, an ignorant piece of shit!

BILLY BOB: Ah’m gonna cut off a horse’s head and put it in yuh bed.

HARVEY: This is because I’m Jewish, right? Tell the truth, Billy.​

This is about as convivial as threatening banter between two self-loathing narcissists gets, no? In the end, Thornton wouldn’t budge.
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One can only imagine how he went in on the women who delivered pictures to him.
 
D

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
kevin1025 said:
It always bothered me, the stories of how he sweet talked directors and producers about how much he loves their film, and then the second he buys it, shreds it to pieces.

This, of course, sounds far worse if it's the rumors mentioned in the thread here.
Click to expand...
IIRC, he was also an asshole in how he conned Disney into a deal where they paid him, in part, based on the number of movies Miramax picked up for distribution, even if the distribution never happened. So he ran around buying up foreign movie rights, shoving them on the shelf, and laughing his way to the bank. Or, you know, releasing them in butchered forms.
 
Z

ZeroX03

Banned
It’d have to be pretty fucking bad for this kind of response, it’s well known what an asshole the guy is and that never stopped him.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Boy, it sure would be nice if his lawyers couldn't finesse their way through something like this for a change. Fascinating figure, but he's long needed to pay the piper for all the shit he's done over the years, and I'm not talking about what he's done to films.
 
K

kevin1025

Banned
Gentleman Jack said:
The Legend of Harvey Scissorhands



One can only imagine how he went in on the women who delivered pictures to him.
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Yep, Sling Blade, Gangs of New York, and Shakespeare in Love were the ones I remember from over the years. He also has a thing for ripping foreign films apart.

Dan said:
IIRC, he was also an asshole in how he conned Disney into a deal where they paid him, in part, based on the number of movies Miramax picked up for distribution, even if the distribution never happened. So he ran around buying up foreign movie rights, shoving them on the shelf, and laughing his way to the bank. Or, you know, releasing them in butchered forms.
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It's insane how his reputation didn't burn quicker. But I guess when Tarantino and Kevin Smith were singing his praise, it spoke louder than the little guys he was crushing along the way.
 
R

Ridley327

Member
kevin1025 said:
It's insane how his reputation didn't burn quicker. But I guess when Tarantino and Kevin Smith were singing his praise, it spoke louder than the little guys he was crushing along the way.
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More importantly, he also had a ton of money at his disposal, so he could simply brute force his way out of potentially damaging situations. In recent years, though, he's been dogged by accusations that his once proud fortune that he and his brother shared has been rapidly dwindling, and it's hard not to see that in action with how much smaller the films that they distribute open and the dramatic drop-off he's seen in terms of getting nominations at awards shows.
 
B

BUNTING1243

Banned
this has been pretty publicly talked about for a while, just no one was willing to go on record

glad that’s changing, fuck this guy
 
K

Krev

Unconfirmed Member
Ridley327 said:
Boy, it sure would be nice if his lawyers couldn't finesse their way through something like this for a change. Fascinating figure, but he's long needed to pay the piper for all the shit he's done over the years, and I'm not talking about what he's done to films.
Click to expand...
He needs to pay the piper for all the shit he's done to films, let alone anything else.
 
T

The Kree

Banned
I've read many times over the years that this guy tries to make everyone literally suck his dick to be in the movie business, men and women alike.
 
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