More revelations, developments and newly emboldened accusers in the Harvey Weinstein story: In the New Yorker, Ronan Farrow reports that three women accuse the movie mogul of rape. The magazine presents audio from a police sting against Weinstein, in which he appears to admit to groping women in the past. The Huffington Post says Farrow's story “was in NBC's hands as recently as August" but the network passed on it. In the New York Times, Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie, and others say Weinstein made unwanted advances toward them too. Weinstein's wife said she's leaving him, as he reportedly flew on a private jet to Europe for treatment.
From the New Yorker:
Read Full Article »Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein's companies told me that they witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances and touching at events associated with Weinstein's films and in the workplace. They and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models. All sixteen said that the behavior was widely known within both Miramax and the Weinstein Company. Messages sent by Irwin Reiter, a senior company executive, to Emily Nestor, one of the women who alleged that she was harassed at the company, described the “mistreatment of women” as a serial problem that the Weinstein Company was struggling with in recent years. Other employees described what was, in essence, a culture of complicity at Weinstein's places of business, with numerous people throughout the companies fully aware of his behavior but either abetting it or looking the other way. Some employees said that they were enlisted in subterfuge to make the victims feel safe. A female executive with the company described how Weinstein assistants and others served as a “honeypot”—they would initially join a meeting, but then Weinstein would dismiss them, leaving him alone with the woman.
