[Canopus]

Samseau's right, this is unraveling in a hurry. Now I see that his own superfeminist lawyer, Lisa Bloom, quit on him yesterday. And, of course...

Quote:

President Donald Trump, preparing to board a helicopter to travel from the White House to a North Carolina fundraiser on Saturday, was asked by reporters to weigh in on the embattled Hollywood figure. "I've known Harvey Weinstein a long time," Trump replied. When asked if he was surprised by the accusations, the president replied: "Not at all."

So uh...do we have an RVF Dead Pool?

[HighSpeed_LowDrag]

Unsurprisingly, Weinstein is as massive a sleazeball in his non-sexual personal life as you'd expect.

http://nypost.com/2017/10/07/i-witnessed...-waitress/

Quote:

I witnessed Harvey Weinstein’s sleaziness up close: ex-waitress

Jade Budowski worked as a waitress at the Tribeca Grill, which is located in Harvey Weinstein’s office building, from July 2016 to January 2017. Here she recounts the mogul’s regular business meetings and nighttime assignations at the restaurant — and being a target herself. (Budowski is now a reporter/producer at decider.com)

Harvey Weinstein was every bit the sleazy Hollywood caricature recent reports have made him out to be. When I was working as a waitress, I watched numerous times as a string of young women — some seemingly no older than 21 — entered the restaurant for long, flirty dinners with him, even though he was married with five children.

These women were all the same: vaguely European, always beautiful, stylishly dressed, and totally out of place next to someone like him. The staff could usually tell that the woman was there to meet him before she had even said a word. If a woman waited for him at the bar, he’d bellow furiously at more than one of us for not having seated her prior to his arrival, despite the fact that she’d insisted on it. “Why the f- -k isn’t she at the table?” he’d say.

The ritual for his rendezvous was very firm. Champagne, caviar, and an unspoken rule that Weinstein and his date not be disturbed. The pair would sit close, whispering and touching each other suggestively. After dining, Weinstein and a woman would often disappear for a while, exiting the restaurant through a side door.

A fellow server told me: “When a girl arrived waiting for Harvey, we all knew what was in store for her. After a little small talk and a sip of champagne, there would be an ‘office tour’ — usually well past working hours, after which the girl would return looking worse for wear and barely able to finish the glass.”

One “office tour,” a term we used jokingly, began with a firm order from Weinstein that his table not be cleared, and so the food sat, untouched, for hours. When the uncomfortable girl finally returned about two hours later, they sat down and resumed conversation as if no time had passed, keeping us there until he decided he was ready to leave, often around midnight.

Many of the women he saw would return for second or third dates. Sometimes, Weinstein and a woman would come back to the restaurant the next morning, with her sporting wet hair and the same clothes.

As he attempted to charm his guests, he terrorized the wait staff.

In his signature black T-shirt and jeans, he’d sidle over to one of his two favorite tables in the back. He would almost never look you in the eye, too busy reading the paper or biting off an assistant’s head.

His food tastes were those of toddler. He’d regularly order “well-done” fries, chopped-up fettuccine, ice cream with extra sprinkles and French onion soup that he would slurp and splatter all over the booth.

Always, a bottle of still water was expected as soon as he arrived.

Once, a coworker brought him sparkling water instead. He made his frustration known by attempting to tap her butt to get her attention.

Inappropriate touching was a habit of his. If you weren’t paying attention and the restaurant was loud, he might lurch at whatever part of you he could reach. Once, while I put in an order at the computer, he barreled up and body-checked me. Then, as if nothing had happened, he barked: “Back. Coffee. Tea. Now.”

Even though I’ve not seen him for six months, this week’s revelations brought back terrible recollections. The feelings of anxiety and degradation he inflicted on all of us — especially the women — continue to plague me to this day.

The Weinstein Company declined to comment on this story.

[Canopus]

(10-08-2017 09:23 PM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  

His food tastes were those of toddler. He’d regularly order “well-done” fries, chopped-up fettuccine, ice cream with extra sprinkles and French onion soup that he would slurp and splatter all over the booth.

[etshella]

Is getting fired from the company that bears your name and that you created worse than getting fired on your day off?

[Leonard D Neubache]

Hilarious.

This is like KFC firing Col. Sanders.

[Atlanta Man]

I feel sorry for the guy.

[Roosh]

(10-08-2017 10:15 PM)etshella Wrote:  

Is getting fired from the company that bears your name and that you created worse than getting fired on your day off?

[Disco_Volante]

It was probably frustrating seeing his actors pull all the ass they want and ultimately Harvey was just a fat nerd trying to be like them. So rich and powerful yet unable to pull ass beyond coercion or heavy incentives.
At the end of the day he's just a fat nerd who held weight over the jocks for a time.

He didn't know how to handle women because he probably never got them before he was a studio exec either.

[Dan Woolf]

(10-07-2017 08:14 PM)monster Wrote:  

I'm much more sympathetic to Harvey than to Cosby. Whereas Cosby drugged and nonconsensually raped his women

Did he really? A few desperate for attention, over the hill women jumping on the bandwagon, and telling the same story doesn't count as proof.

[CynicalContrarian]

(10-08-2017 10:15 PM)Canopus Wrote:  

(10-08-2017 09:23 PM)HighSpeed_LowDrag Wrote:  

His food tastes were those of toddler. He’d regularly order “well-done” fries, chopped-up fettuccine, ice cream with extra sprinkles and French onion soup that he would slurp and splatter all over the booth.

You've got to put the work in!
If you want that much of a gut.

Never skip gut day!

[Leonard D Neubache]

"Hey, baby! How's about you come over here so ol' Winey can give you a gut job?"

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

(10-07-2017 03:18 PM)John Michael Kane Wrote:  

(10-07-2017 03:14 PM)Lion of Judah Wrote:  

Is he one of (((them))) too?

Who isn't one of (((them))) in Hollywood? The whole town is (((them))).

[CJ_W]

(10-07-2017 05:05 AM)CynicalContrarian Wrote:  

Lawrence was already overexposed due to "The Fappening". Now all this...

Dude, one of her pictures IS ON A CASTING COUCH (if you look closely at it.) Of COURSE she used it to get the roles she got, why do you think she got all mad about it?

In my opinion, the fappening was one of the guys blackmail activation. As I'm sure they ALL take pictures and ALL share that shit around.

[CynicalContrarian]

Weinstein : "This god damned scandal..."

Dove : "Hold my soap."

[TravelerKai]

(10-09-2017 02:55 AM)Dan Woolf Wrote:  

(10-07-2017 08:14 PM)monster Wrote:  

I'm much more sympathetic to Harvey than to Cosby. Whereas Cosby drugged and nonconsensually raped his women

Did he really? A few desperate for attention, over the hill women jumping on the bandwagon, and telling the same story doesn't count as proof.

Just wait for it. Someone is going to claim rape by him and they will come after his money and probably for a Cosby like trial. Doesn't matter if you are an uppity black man or a Jew. Liberal Cannibalism from what we have seen does not discriminate.

[Turnus]

Apparently the NY Times investigated these allegations and were set to run a similar story in 2004 but caved under pressure from Weinstein

Harvey Weinsteins media enablers. NY Times is one of them

[debeguiled]

I hope he is cellie with Nelly.

[komatiite]

[url=https://twitter.com/thatkevinsmith/status/917415980430708737][/url]

I didn't realize Kevin smith movies were all by Weinstein! What a bummer. I loved Mallrats. A true cinematic classic. Now it's forever tainted!

[behnam]

Exclusive: Judi Dench, Who Has Harvey Weinstein Tattoo on Her Butt, Says Sexual Harassment Reports Are 'Horrifying'

http://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-judi-d...ual-680815

HAHAHAHA.

[debeguiled]

(10-09-2017 01:42 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

[url=https://twitter.com/thatkevinsmith/status/917415980430708737][/url]

I didn't realize Kevin smith movies were all by Weinstein! What a bummer. I loved Mallrats. A true cinematic classic. Now it's forever tainted!

Are you joking? Enjoy both the movie and the fact that Kevin Smith is for once in his life ashamed.

And don't forget to laugh at all the brave women who waited till their careers were over to suddenly find Weinstein horrifying.

[Dan Woolf]

Harvey "A Role Will Cost You A Hole" Weinstein
Harvey "I put the 'Ouch' in 'Casting Couch' " Weinstein
Harvey "I got in on tape in case you cry rape" Weinstein
Harvey "Lube up that Flesh for a Certified Fresh" Weinstein
Harvey "A Star is Born When She Sucks My Horn" Weinstein
Harvey "Buying Her Silence After Sexual Violence" Weinstein
Harvey "Rich and Famous If I Penetrate Your Anus" Weinstein
Harvey "Every New Actress Must Visit My Mattress" Weinstein
Harvey "I Got The Power So You Watch Me Shower" Weinstein
Harvey "Clean it up with a mop and I'll take you to the top" Weinstein
Harvey "Put a finger in my buttcrack if you want a callback" Weinstein
Harvey "Swallow my cream if you want the American Dream" Weinstein
Harvey "If you want to be in movies, show me your boobies" Weinstein
Harvey "First You Ride On My Meat, Then Quentin Jerks Off On Your Feet" Weinstein
Harvey "Wear something scant or I'll find a potted plant" Weinstein

[komatiite]

(10-09-2017 02:16 PM)debeguiled Wrote:  

(10-09-2017 01:42 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

[url=https://twitter.com/thatkevinsmith/status/917415980430708737][/url]

I didn't realize Kevin smith movies were all by Weinstein! What a bummer. I loved Mallrats. A true cinematic classic. Now it's forever tainted!

Are you joking? Enjoy both the movie and the fact that Kevin Smith is for once in his life ashamed.

And don't forget to laugh at all the brave women who waited till their careers were over to suddenly find Weinstein horrifying.

Is Kevin Smith a real knob? I actually don't know anything about him

[debeguiled]

(10-09-2017 03:21 PM)komatiite Wrote:  

Is Kevin Smith a real knob? I actually don't know anything about him

For a successful man, he is pretty gamma.

AB and QC ripped him a new one in this thread.

thread-55301...pid1285116

[DamienCasanova]

Good article with some strong points at the end

Why the Harvey Weinstein Story Is Worse Than You Think
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-human-...le/2009995

That’s why the story about Harvey Weinstein finally broke now. It’s because the media industry that once protected him has collapsed. The magazines that used to publish the stories Miramax optioned can’t afford to pay for the kind of reporting and storytelling that translates into screenplays. They’re broke because Facebook and Google have swallowed all the digital advertising money that was supposed to save the press as print advertising continued to tank.

Look at Vanity Fair, basically the in-house Miramax organ that Tina failed to make Talk: Condé Nast demanded massive staff cuts from Graydon Carter and he quit. He knows they’re going to turn his aspirational bible into a blog, a fate likely shared by most (if not all) of the Condé Nast books.

Si Newhouse, magazine publishing’s last Medici, died last week, and who knows what will happen to Condé now. There are no more journalists; there are just bloggers scrounging for the crumbs Silicon Valley leaves them. Who’s going to make a movie out of a Vox column? So what does anyone in today’s media ecosystem owe Harvey Weinstein? And besides, it’s good story, right? “Downfall of a media Mogul.” Maybe there’s even a movie in it.

Rebecca Traister says the stories are coming out now because “our consciousness has been raised.” Between Bill Cosby and Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, and Donald Trump, argues Traister, people are now accustomed to speaking and hearing the truth about famous, sexually abusive men.

This is wrong. It has nothing to do with “raised consciousness”—or else she wouldn’t have left off that list the one name obviously missing. It’s not about raised consciousness or else the Democratic party’s 2016 presidential campaign would not have been a year-long therapy session treating a repressed trauma victim with even its main slogan—“I’m with her”—referencing a muted plea for sympathy for a woman who’d been publicly shamed by a sexual predator.

Which brings us, finally, to the other reason the Weinstein story came out now: Because the court over which Bill Clinton once presided, a court in which Weinstein was one part jester, one part exchequer, and one part executioner, no longer exists.

A thought experiment: Would the Weinstein story have been published if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency? No, and not because he is a big Democratic fundraiser. It’s because if the story was published during the course of a Hillary Clinton presidency, it wouldn’t have really been about Harvey Weinstein. Harvey would have been seen as a proxy for the president’s husband and it would have embarrassed the president, the first female president.

Bill Clinton offered get-out-of-jail-free cards to a whole army of sleazeballs, from Jeffrey Epstein to Harvey Weinstein to the foreign donors to the Clinton Global Initiative. The deal was simple: Pay up, genuflect, and get on with your existence. It was like a papacy selling indulgences, at the same time that everyone knew that the cardinals were up to no good. The 2016 election demolished Clinton world once and for all, to be replaced by the cult of Obama, an austere sect designated by their tailored hair shirts with Nehru collars. “That is not who we are as Americans,” they chant, as Harvey Weinstein’s ashes are scattered in the wind.

[budoslavic]

[/url]

Quote:

[url=https://www.thewrap.com/media-enablers-harvey-weinstein-new-york-times/]‘Harvey Weinstein’s Media Enablers’? The New York Times Is One of Them
The paper had a story on mogul’s sexual misconduct back in 2004 — but gutted it under pressure

A whole lot of fur has been flying since last Thursday, when The New York Times published a game-changing investigative story about Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct that in lightning speed brought the mogul to his knees.

He apologized and took an immediate leave of absence from the company he co-founded, but that wasn’t enough. His board members and legal advisers have been resigning en masse. And as new, ugly details emerge of three decades of settlements for sex-related offenses, he’s quickly becoming a national pariah.

I applaud The New York Times and writers Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey for getting the story in print. I’m sure it was a long and difficult road.

But I simply gagged when I read Jim Rutenberg’s sanctimonious piece on Saturday about the “media enablers” who kept this story from the public for decades.

“Until now,” he puffed, “no journalistic outfit had been able, or perhaps willing, to nail the details and hit publish.”

That’s right, Jim. No one — including The New York Times.

In 2004, I was still a fairly new reporter at The New York Times when I got the green light to look into oft-repeated allegations of sexual misconduct by Weinstein. It was believed that many occurred in Europe during festivals and other business trips there.

I traveled to Rome and tracked down the man who held the plum position of running Miramax Italy. According to multiple accounts, he had no film experience and his real job was to take care of Weinstein’s women needs, among other things.

As head of Miramax Italy in 2003 and 2004, Fabrizio Lombardo was paid $400,000 for less than a year of employment. He was on the payroll of Miramax and thus the Walt Disney Company, which had bought the indie studio in 1993.

I had people on the record telling me Lombardo knew nothing about film, and others citing evenings he organized with Russian escorts.

At the time, he denied that he was on the payroll to help Weinstein with favors. From the story: “Reached in Italy, Mr. Lombardo declined to comment on the circumstances of his leaving Miramax or Ricucci, saying they were legal matters being handled by lawyers. ‘I am very proud of what we achieved at Miramax here in Italy,’ he said of his work for the film company. ‘It cannot be that they hired me because I’m a friend.'”

I also tracked down a woman in London who had been paid off after an unwanted sexual encounter with Weinstein. She was terrified to speak because of her non-disclosure agreement, but at least we had evidence of a pay-off.

The story I reported never ran.

After intense pressure from Weinstein, which included having Matt Damon and Russell Crowe call me directly to vouch for Lombardo and unknown discussions well above my head at the Times, the story was gutted.

I was told at the time that Weinstein had visited the newsroom in person to make his displeasure known. I knew he was a major advertiser in the Times, and that he was a powerful person overall.

But I had the facts, and this was the Times. Right?

Wrong. The story was stripped of any reference to sexual favors or coercion and buried on the inside of the Culture section, an obscure story about Miramax firing an Italian executive. Who cared?

The Times’ then-culture editor Jon Landman, now an editor-at-large for Bloomberg, thought the story was unimportant, asking me why it mattered.

“He’s not a publicly elected official,” he told me. I explained, to no avail, that a public company would certainly have a problem with a procurer on the payroll for hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the time, Disney told me they had no idea Lombardo existed.

A spokeswoman for the Times had no comment on Sunday.

I was devastated after traveling to two countries and overcoming immense challenges to confirm at least part of the story that wound up running last week, more than a decade later. I had met in person with a woman who said she’d been paid off for an unwanted sexual encounter and thus proved she existed.

Update: Several have asked why I did not pursue the story once I started TheWrap. Fair question. Five years later, 2009, the moment had passed to go back and write the missing piece about Lombardo, who was no longer on the scene and whose story had been half-published in the Times. Miramax was no longer part of the Walt Disney Company. And I did not have sufficient evidence to write about a pay-off, even though I knew one existed. My focus was on raising money, building a website and starting a media company. In the subsequent years since then I did not hear about further pay-offs or harrassment and thought the issue was in the past. Weinstein had made a big effort, supposedly, to curb his temper and behavior, which was reflected in other areas of his public life.

Today I wonder: If this story had come to light at the time, would Weinstein have continued his behavior for another decade, evidenced by the scathing 2015 memo by former staffer Lauren O’Connor unearthed by Kantor and Twohey.

Writes Rutenberg: “Mr. Weinstein had his own enablers. He built his empire on a pile of positive press clippings that, before the internet era, could have reached the moon.”

The New York Times was one of those enablers. So pardon me for having a deeply ambivalent response about the current heroism of the Times.

Editors note: A previous version of this story stated that Jon Landman was a deputy managing editor at the Times. He left that position in 2013 to become an editor at large at Bloomberg View. TheWrap regrets the error.