The (Authorized) Downfall of Harvey Weinstein

He was once a powerful, untouchable Hollywood mogul. He has now fallen from grace and was fired from the company bearing his name. What happened?

Harvey Weinstein is the archetype of the sleazebag Hollywood producer. He promised young and beautiful actresses roles in exchange for sexual favors. If things didn’t go his way, he would frown and say the typical Hollywood line: “You will never work in this town again”. If the subjects of his advances dared to turn on him, he would throw money at them until they shut up. Or worse, he would threaten to destroy their career through his mass media connections.

“Multiple sources said that Weinstein frequently bragged about planting items in media outlets about those who spoke against him; these sources feared that they might be similarly targeted.”
– The New Yorker, From Aggressive Overtures to Assault: Harvey Weinstein’s Accusers Tell Their Stories

If you’ve read other articles on this site, you already know that the Hollywood elite is filled with evil, sleazy, perverted, manipulative, and unusually cruel individuals.

Harvey Weinstein was one of them. And it wasn’t even hidden.

An Open Secret

For years, Weinstein’s string of sexual assaults was an open secret. Even worse, it was a running gag. Here’s a clip from the 2013 Oscars where Seth McFarlane alludes to Weinstein’s abuse of actresses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCNvREKTnQc

The crowd laughter is somewhat disturbing.

Here’s a clip from 30 Rock about the character Jenna turning down Weinstein.

Weinstein’s sphere of power was not limited to Hollywood. He made his way into the political elite by becoming an important financial supporter of all major Democratic candidates over the past two decades.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Weinstein has personally donated $1.4 million to the Democratic Party, its candidates, and its committees since 1990. In addition, his network raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Barack Obama in 2012 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, which allowed him to reach a higher level on the donors’ scale, and a higher level of access.

For instance, in August 2011, Weinstein invited New York VIPs (including stars such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Alicia Keys) to his New York home for a fundraising reception for President Barack Obama – who was in attendance. Yes, Obama was at his house.

Harvey Weinstein was also a regular at the White House. In 2011, he was at the table of honor at a State Department lunch with Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel. In 2012, he was at a State dinner in honor of the British Prime Minister David Cameron. Weinstein’s wife, Georgina Chapman, designed Michelle Obama’s gown for the occasion.

On June 20, 2016, Hillary Clinton attended a fundraiser at Weinstein’s New York home where about 60 attendees each paid $33,400 or more to attend. Yes, Clinton was at his house.

With the candidate there in person, a June 20, 2016 fundraiser at Weinstein’s Manhattan home snared $1.8 million for the Clinton campaign. The Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick attended event was one of many Weinstein was involved in last year in Clinton’s battle for the nomination and then against Donald Trump in her effort to become America’s first female President. Pushing others to write hefty checks, Weinstein himself gave thousands personally to Clinton campaign and $30,000 to the Clinton Victory Fund.
– Deadline, Hillary Clinton Gets More Big Bucks Support From Harvey Weinstein, JLo & Sarah Jessica Parker

… and her husband …

… and her daughter.

Weinstein with Obama and Schumer.

Weinstein at Planned Parenthood’s 100th Anniversary Gala on May 2nd 2017 – with Hillary.

Another tidbit: In 2004, Weinstein was appointed an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Fall From Grace

For decades, Weinstein appeared to be untouchable, but something happened recently. The elite stopped protecting him. The omerta was over. Rumors turned into on-the-record accounts and, soon after, the floodgates were opened. Since then, a mind-boggling number of Hollywood actresses have come forward, accusing Weinstein of everything from “inappropriate behavior” to all-out rape. Here’s the most recent list of accusations.

Cara Delevingne: The model turned actress said Weinstein tried to get her to engage in a threesome with him and another woman in a New York City hotel room

Gwyneth Paltrow: The star told the New York Times that Weinstein touched her and suggested having joint massages in the bedroom before she started shooting the 1996 film Emma. She said she told her then boyfriend Brad Pitt about the incident and he confronted the mogul.

Angelina Jolie: Jolie told the Times she had to turn down advances from Weinstein in 1998 and chose never to work with him again. She said she warned other women about him.

Louisette Geiss:  Actress was called to a late night meeting with Weinstein in 2008. He allegedly emerged in a bathrobe and told her he would green light her script if she watched him mastUrbate. She left the meeting.

Judith Godreche: The French actress says Weinstein tried to massage her and pull off her sweater after asking her up to his Cannes suite to see the view in 1996.

Dawn Dunning: Aspiring actress says she was called to a meeting about future film projects in 2003. When she arrived Weinstein presented her with three scripts for his next three movies which he would let her star in, only if she had three-way with him. She fled the hotel.

Tomi-Ann Roberts: Weinstein met her when she was serving tables as a college junior in 1984 and told her to meet him at his home. When she arrived, she says, he was naked in the bath and told her she would give a better audition if she was nude. She says she refused and left.

Asia Argento: The Italian actress has accused Weinstein of forcibly performing oral on her when she was 21. ‘He terrified me, and he was big. It wouldn’t stop. It was a nightmare.’  She said she went on to have consensual relations with him over the years that followed. She documented the alleged attack in her 2000 film “Scarlet Diva”.

Katherine Kendall: The Swingers actress was told Weinstein had to stop off in his apartment to pick something up after a screening in 1993. He changed into a bathrobe and told her to massage him. When she resisted she said the mogul returned naked and chased her.

Lucia Evans: The actress, formerly known as Lucia Stoller, claims Weinstein forced her to perform oral on him in 2004. Speaking to the New Yorker, she said that she suffered years of trauma after the incident, which occurred in a ‘casting meeting’ in a Miramax office in Manhattan. He reportedly called her late at night after the incident.

Mira Sorvino: The “Mighty Aphrodite” actress told the New Yorker that Weinstein tried to massage her in a hotel room at the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival. He then went to her home in the middle of the night, but she called a male friend to protect her, she claimed. She said turning down the mogul adversely affected her career.

Rosanna Arquette:  The actress also said her career suffered after she rebuffed Weinstein’s advances in the early 1990s. At a hotel meeting he tried to put her hand on his erect penis, she claims.

Rose McGowan: The actress, who made her breakthrough in 1996 in the Weinstein-produced slasher revival movie “Scream”, reportedly sued Weinstein after he assaulted her in 1997 at the Sundance Film Festival. She signed a non-disclosure agreement at the close of the suit and has only referred to him obliquely in social media since. On Sunday, she referred to being abused by a ‘monster’ and has previously referred to being raped by a studio head.

Ashley Judd: Judd’s film roles include the 1997 thriller “Kiss the Girls” – and says that during the filming of that movie, Weinstein repeatedly asked her to watch him shower. She was one of the women who spoke out to The New York Times this week, saying: ‘Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and it’s simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly.’

Emma De Caunes: French actress Emma de Caunes said that she met Weinstein in 2010, soon after he told her he had a script he was producing based on a book with a strong female character. Weinstein offered to show her the script, and asked her up to his hotel room, where he began to take a shower. He then emerged naked and with an erection, asking her to lay down with him on the bed and telling her that many had done so before. ‘I was very petrified,’ said de Caunes. ‘But I didn’t want to show him that I was petrified, because I could feel that the more I was freaking out, the more he was excited.’

Lauren O’Connor: A former employee of The Weinstein Company, she told executives there in the fall of 2015 that there was ‘a toxic environment for women at this company’ after one of her colleagues told her that Weinstein had pressured her into massaging him while he was naked, the NYT said.

Ambra Battilana: An Italian actress and model, she told the NYT that in March 2015 Weinstein invited her to his New York office. There, she said, he asked if her breasts were real before grabbing them and putting his hands up her skirt. She reported the alleged incident to police, but they did not press charges. According to the NYT, Weinstein later paid her off.

Jessica Barth: Weintein reportedly pressured Barth, an actress, to give him a naked massage in the Peninsula Hotel from 2011 onwards.

Laura Madden: An ex-employee, she told the NYT that Weinstein had asked her to give him massages from 1991 onwards, while they were both in London and Dublin. ‘It was so manipulative,’ she told the NYT. ‘You constantly question yourself – am I the one who is the problem?’ Weinstein denied knowledge.

Emily Nestor: Nestor had been a temporary employee of the Weinstein Company for just one day in 2014 when Weinstein approached her and offered to boost her career in exchange for relations, the NYT reported.

Zelda Perkins: An assistant of Weinstein’s, based in London in 1998; then 25, she reportedly confronted Weinstein after she and ‘several’ others were harassed and later settled out of court.

Elizabeth Karlsen: The Oscar-nominated producer of “Carol” and “The Crying Game”, among others, told The Hollywood Reporter on Sunday that almost 30 years ago, an unnamed young female executive who had worked at Miramax with Weinstein had found him naked in her bedroom one night. The exec was in a house rented by Miramax at the time to cut its overhead costs.

Liza Campbell: A freelance script reader, she told the UK’s Sunday Times that Weinstein had summoned her to his hotel room in London before telling her to get in the bath with him.

Lauren Sivan: The former Fox news host said that Weinstein trapped her in a closed restaurant and masturbated in front of her to completion in 2007. He took her to a closed restaurant beneath a club she had visited and attempted to kiss her, then when she refused, he cornered her and made her watch him touch himself, according to The Huffington Post.

Jessica Hynes: The British actress, best known for her roles in the Bridget Jones movies and for co-creating and co-writing the sitcom “Spaced”, said she was invited to audition for Weinstein when she was 19 – in a bikini. Hynes, formerly known as Jessica Stevenson, said she refused to wear the skimpy item – and lost the job.

Romola Garai: British actress Romola Garai said she felt ‘violated’ following a meeting with Harvey Weinstein in his London hotel room when she was 18 in which he was in a bathrobe. Garai, best known for her role in “Atonement”, said she had already been hired for a part but was told to audition privately with the Hollywood mogul because ‘you had to be personally approved by him’. ‘Like every other woman in the industry, I’ve had an ‘audition’ with Harvey Weinstein,’ she told The Guardian. ‘So I had to go to his hotel room in the Savoy and he answered the door in his bathrobe. I was only 18. I felt violated by it’.   

Unnamed assistant: Weinstein allegedly behaved inappropriately toward a woman employed as his assistant in 1990. The case was settled out of court.

Another unnamed assistant: In 2015, Weinstein reportedly pressured another assistant into giving him a naked massage in the Peninsula Hotel, where he is also said to have pressured Barth.

Unnamed Miramax employee: At one point in the early 1990s, a young woman is alleged to have suddenly left the company after an encounter with Weinstein. She also settled out of court.

Unnamed woman: A woman who did not wish to be named because she feared Weinstein’s connections told The New York Times that the producer had summoned her to his hotel at an unknown date and raped her.
– Daily Mail

More than 30 women have now gone forward and accused Weinstein of all kinds of misconducts. Some of these allegations date from over 20 years ago. Hillary Clinton went on record to claim that she was “sick, shocked, and appalled” – as if this was all ground-shaking news to her.

Why is this all unraveling now? Why did these stars come forward at the same time? When Weinstein was protected by the elite, the actresses who tried to tell their stories were told no one would believe them, to shut up, that it was no big deal, and, if they persisted, to take hush money.

Now, whether it was the result of too many well-known women being willing to go on record or some other un-reported reason, Weinstein has fallen from the grace of the Hollywood elite. The media wall that used to protect him–the same way it continues to protect countless other elite abusers–has fallen.

Weinstein is now in the midst of a classical American “downfall”. In the span of a few days, accusations flew from everywhere, his marriage fell apart, and he was fired from his own company.

Despite all of this, many fear that Weinstein might “pull a Polanski” and avoid any kind of legal prosecution. (Roman Polanski was accused of the abuse of a 13-year-old girl, but avoided prosecution in the US by fleeing to Europe. He continues to be revered as a director.) While Weinstein’s Hollywood career is over, he might just be able to sit on his millions of dollars and avoid jail for the rest of his life. So far, no criminal charges have been brought against him.

Lindsay Lohan Doesn’t Agree

Going against this tidal wave of accusations is Lindsay Lohan. In a bizarre Instagram video, Lohan (with her new accent) stated:

“He’s never harmed me or did anything to me. We’ve done several movies together. I think everyone needs to stop; I think it’s wrong. So stand up.”

lindsay lohan (and her whack accent) is defending Harvey Weinstein on her insta rn. GOODBYE TO YOU FOREVER. pic.twitter.com/aMzvAOXPYp

— lauren yap (@itslaurenyap) October 11, 2017

This video was rather unexpected because Lohan of the most obvious cases of Hollywood celebrity being “abused” by the elite. She even appears in photoshoots describing her status as Beta Kitten.

Lindsay Lohan in a photoshoot by Tyler Shields where she is about to be “used” by a bunch of men.

Lohan’s video was deleted after about an hour. Rose McGowan, one of the most vocal accusers of Weinstein tweeted:

“Please go easy on Lindsay Lohan. Being a child actor turned sex symbol twists the brain in ways you can’t comprehend.”

She is right. Child actors are repeatedly abused and traumatized to create MK slaves out of them. As explained in this article, Lohan’s sudden change in accent and speech pattern is a symptom of trauma-based mind control.

Tip of the Iceberg

Although the allegations against Weinstein are appalling and disgusting, they represent only the very tip of the iceberg of the sordid actions “rumored” about the Hollywood elite. What about child sex trafficking rings? Ritual abuse? MK slaves? Ordered assassinations? Of course, divulging this information would put at risk the scumbags that are still under elite protection. Right now, the allegations against Weinstein involve Weinstein only, and that’s how they want to keep it. It is a controlled demolition.

Actor James Van Der Beek published a few tweets in support of the actresses who spoke up and revealed that it happened to him as well.

I’ve had my ass grabbed by older, powerful men, I’ve had them corner me in inappropriate sexual conversations when I was much younger…

— James Van Der Beek (@vanderjames) October 12, 2017

As you can see, he does not name these “old, powerful men”. Why? Because they are still protected.

Was Weinstein involved in more than sleazy Hollywood producer sexual assault? We probably won’t find out, but the last paragraph of the New Yorker article about Weinstein definitely makes one wonder.

“He’s been systematically doing this for a very long time,” the former employee who had been made to act as a “honeypot” told me. She said that she often thinks of something Weinstein whispered—to himself, as far as she could tell—after one of his many shouting sprees at the office. It so unnerved her that she pulled out her iPhone and tapped it into a memo, word for word: “There are things I’ve done that nobody knows.”
– The New Yorker

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