May 31, 2018 • 42 mins
This is Part Two of, 'It Takes a Village of Bastards to Make a Weinstein.' Robert is joined again by Anna Hossnieh (Ethnically Ambiguous Podcast) and they discuss the people who enabled Harvey Weinstein.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, dear Internet friends. I'm Robert Evans, and this is
again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
everything you don't know about the very worst people in
all of history. And this is part two of our
two part our episode on a Harvey Weinstein. In part one,
we started outlining all of the different people who had
to essentially compromise their morality, do artwright terrible things or
(00:24):
questionable things in order to allow Harvey to prey on
women and get away with it for decades. Uh. And
in this episode, we're doing more of that, starting with
Harvey Weinstein's spy army. But before we get into that,
I would like to introduce my guest for this episode. Uh,
same guest we had last time, Anna hosnia Ho, host
of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast and other things. Thank you
(00:47):
for having me. Yeah, alright, we're getting back into Harvey
weinstein spy army. Uh. So, Harvey Weinstein's net worth, at
least before all this came crashing down on him, was
generally reported as being in the two D three hundred
million dollar reign. Uh this meant really because could you imagine?
So this this means he has enough disposable income to
(01:11):
not just buy off people, but pay for these services
of companies. Uh. Two days ago we talked about a
company called Kroll. Um. When however, you would settle with people,
he would have the security company go through their phones
and electronic devices. Right in fun fact, it's Nick Kroll's
family comedian. Really yeah, same family. Really, that's his grandfather's company.
(01:35):
Well that's unsettling. Really. Two days ago, when I was like, oh,
that's a familiar name, you didn't catch what I meant.
I'm just crazy. No, No, I didn't catch with him
as at all. And I didn't even think about like
I figured it was like Kroll was some sort of
weird acronym for something, because it was like, okay, well,
so Weinstein hired Kroll security services to do things like
(01:56):
when he would settle with a woman, they would go
through all of that lady stuff vices to make sure
she hadn't recorded Weinstein saying anything, didn't have any pictures
of him. It was part of how he sort of
cleaned up after himself. Um. And in two thousand sixteen,
Dan Carson, chairman of Kroll's Investigations and Disputes Division, sent
Harvey eleven photos of Rose McGowan and he together at
events over the years since the alleged assault. Um. These
(02:19):
were photographs of them having conversations, smiling. Kroll's whole goal
there was to find as many pictures as they could
of Rose McGowan talking to Harvey Weinstein and looking comfortable
to use against her, to use against her. Look at them,
What a great relationship they love each other. If she
had a problem with him, why is she smiling in
this picture with him stuck in a system that's oppressing
(02:40):
her from start to the end. You know, no big deal. Yeah. So,
as soon as he got the photos from Kroll, Harvey
sent them over to his defense attorney, who called one
picture of Rose and Harvey having a friendly chat quote
the money shot, which is disturbing. Yeah, it's like a
omelet of grossness. Um. When Weinstein was meeting with the
reporter from New York magazine, Krol sent him a summary
(03:02):
of criticisms of the reporter's past work, as well as
a profile on the reporter's ex wife, noting it quote
might prove relevant to considerations of our response strategy when
Wallace's article and our client is finally published. So Basically
he get to use Kroll is sort of like an
external brain almost like he's like, this woman is going
to come out. I need someone to go through publicly
available images and find everything you can that makes her
(03:25):
look like my friend or whatever. That's what this company
would do for him. It's Skivie. But nothing he's using
Kroll for is super nefarious. It's just more like a
story manipulator. Yeah, I need someone to Google for a
long time and so that I can then use the
information they bring up. So that's that's what Kroll is doing.
So I guess in Nick Kroll's family's defense, nothing that
(03:45):
I've read about them doing is nightmarish. Yet that changes
when we get to a little company Weinstein also hired
called Black Cube Legends. Yeah. So, Black Cube's website describes
the company as quote a select group of veterans from
the Israeli elite intelligence units that specializes in tailored solutions
to complex business and litigation challenges. Yeah. Um, so I
(04:10):
spent some time on their website. I figured that Black
Cubes work for Weinstein would fall under the litigation challenges
category because it seems like a challenging case with like
eighty five women accusing him. Now, Uh so, I'm mosied
over to the litigation support section of their website and
I read it. Now, I'm gonna read it to you.
Understanding your opponent is a key element when building a
(04:30):
strategy for a complex situation. Black Cube supports litigation processes
by identifying your opponents vulnerabilities, interests, priorities, and strategy using
our unique intelligence methodology. Black Cube enhances its clients decision
making by providing otherwise unobtainable information. We help our clients
identify their adversaries sensitive points or vulnerabilities or evidence of
(04:54):
their misconduct. Sounds like a show that Shonda Rhimes would make. Sorry,
I was that too much of a deep cut? That was?
That was a deeper cut than I was comfortable. Murd
political operatives who are trying to find ways to use
something against you, Well, that's exactly what they're doing. That's
exactly how they frame it. Is like, we're helping our
(05:16):
clients the adversaries and like yet when the reality is
that they were helping a multiple rapist attack women. Yeah,
well it's not Sully the good name of fixers. I've
known a lot of great fixers in my time, but
a lot of fixers do tend to get their hands dirty. Yeah,
and these people get their hands very dirty. In mayen,
(05:36):
Rose McGowan got an email from Diana Philip, a high
ranking executive at Reuben Capital Partners. Philip explained that she
was funding a program to fight workplace discrimination and wanted
to know if Rose would speak at the program's kickoff event.
She offered to pay sixty dollars, which I talked to
anybody for sixty grand um. The two women met three
(05:57):
times over the next two months to talk about women's
empowerment and other issues. Rose found her very kind, and
eventually Diana Philip offered to invest in Rose McGowan's production company.
During one of their talks, McGowan mentioned that she was
talking to run In Pharaoh about Weinstein. A week later,
Philip emailed Pharaoh and asked him to meet with her.
Pharaoh ever responded, because he's a smart guy. Yeah, he's
smells smells weird. When The New Yorker published his first
(06:19):
big Weinstein story three months later, Diana Philip email Rose mcgallan, high, love,
how are you feeling? Just wanted to tell you how
brave I think you are. As you might have guessed
Diana Philip isn't a real person. It's an alias made
up by a former Israeli intelligence officer working for Black Cube.
Philip and her entire company and its online footprint were
all inventions of Black Cube. Uh In. A story just
(06:41):
came out like the day we recorded this podcast. I
think NBC put it out where Black Cube was also
fishing around the wives of several Obama administration employees to
try and find compromising information it could use to make
the Iran deal look bad. And the capital company that
they pretended to be from was the same capital company.
(07:03):
They just have this one fake company that they always
pretend to work with, even for the stories have been
out for a while. And the thing is they email
pretending to be someone else trying to help you to
get into your life. Yeah, usually pretend to be someone
with money so that they can be like, oh, I'm
looking at investing, or I can help you set up
this or that. Literally never responding to an email again. Yeah,
never never let anyone give you money. They are I
(07:28):
won't even take pay for work. Um. So, one of
the men who helped Weinstein coordinate his espionage efforts and
really handled like the direct interface and with Black Cube
was an attorney named David boys Um. He has an
otherwise laudable career. He defended al Gore in the two
thousand election dispute, and he argued for marriage equality with
(07:49):
the Supreme Court. So like seems like a great guy.
Mm hmm, Yeah, seems like he's on the right back.
That's actually terrifying. Yeah. That that you can be on
the right side of history arguing in favor of gay
marriage to the Supreme Court and then on the other side,
help manage Harvey Weinstein, inspire me jesus, trust no one man, Well,
(08:13):
just don't trust lawyers, for fucking sure. Um. So, in
two seventeen, while he was working for Weinstein, David Boye
signed a contract with Black Cube that defined their primary
objectives as to quote, provide intelligence which will help the
client's efforts to completely stop the publication of a new
negative article in a leading New York newspaper. Now at
this point I should note that this leading New York
(08:34):
newspaper was The New York Times. Um. Yeah, so that
first article was Megan Tawhey and Joey Canter Um. Apologies
if I'm mispronouncing that, but this is the article that
Boys in Black Cube were trying to stop. Now there
it seems like there might be a conflict of interest
there because David Boys and his firm, we're working for
the New York Times as well defending them in a
(08:55):
libel case at the same time. So obviously when Ronan
Row got into his reporting, he interviewed Boys and he
was like, this seems like a giant fucking conflict. Boys
actually would speak to him, Yeah, Boys did speak to
him as representative for Weinstein. No, No, just talking to
him like as him because because Pharaoh had specific questions
(09:16):
about Boys's work with Weinstein. Um, and I think he
just decided like it was better to talk than to
than to not for whatever reason. Um. But when he
was he was a question if this was a conflict
of interest, um, because he was working for the New
York Times. He basically said that it wasn't a conflict
of interest because of Black Cube had found information that
showed the that Weinstein's accusers were lying, then that would
(09:39):
be in the Times's best interest convenient Yeah, exactly. He's
he's a gigantic weasel. Um. Which is kind of a
bummer from a guy who otherwise sounded like a crusading
hero lawyer. And he's not the only progressive gold star
to get tarnished by the living poop cloud that is
Hardy Weinstein. You've heard of Lisa Bloom, Yeah, oh yeah,
oh yeah yeah. She's an American civil Right It's attorney.
(10:00):
She represented the women whose sexual assault allegations got Bill
O'Reilly fired two sixteen. She represented several women who claimed
Donald Trump had sexually assaulted them. Uh. You remember the
anonymous woman who said that then candidate Trump had raped
her when she was thirteen. She was supposed to reveal
herself at a press conference, but backed away at the
last moment under threats. Lisa Bloom was her attorney as well.
She was also Black China's attorney. She was Black Giants attorney. Yes,
(10:24):
um so Lisa Bloom another person with a great reputation,
particularly when it comes to defending women who have been
abused by powerful men. Uh. And in fall of two
thousand and sixteen, Lisa Bloom took a job with Harvey Weinstein. Uh,
it sounded like the board was worried about the mountain
of complaints and accusations. The story hadn't entirely broken yet.
But you know, Rose McGowan, I think was still was
(10:45):
open at this point, and it was they were basically
trying to have her counsel him into being a better
person so that it would improve his personal pr and
maybe help them get out ahead of any future stories
that came out. I hate that kind of stuff. Yeah,
it's gross. So she's at down with Weinstein to decide
she wanted to take this job, and she says that
he admitted that he had quote verbally made a lot
(11:06):
of inappropriate remarks to women, both inside the workplace and
outside the workplace end quote. But she's claiming she did
not know anything about the abuse. Yes, that's why she
took the gig. She's claiming she thought that he was
admitting to being a gross guy who's actually her asked
women but not assaulted and raped them. Um, and so
(11:26):
she thought it was an opportunity to to teach him
and make him a better person. She lectured to him
that the hitting on these women wasn't okay because of
the power and balance. Uh. And I'm going to I'm
gonna quote from the n l A Times article here,
which is quoting Lisa Bloom. He would repeat back to
me the power imbalance, Lisa, I get it, I see it.
He choked up. I don't know what's wrong with me.
(11:47):
I'm sick, I'm stupid. I've hurt people. What can I
do now? And I said, you need to apologize. You
can't turn back time, but you can do the right
thing now. Don't go after the women and get help
and stop it. He said, will you work with me
to do that? And I said yes, I will. So God,
that sounds so pr like it's super gross, wrote that
(12:09):
Lisa Bloom. Uh. Yeah, So when the New York Times
article dropped, Lisa Bloom showed up on Good Morning America
to call Weinstein's behavior gross, but also to say that
he was genuinely remorseful. Um. She said he was an
old dinosaur struggling to adapt to new ways, basically, and
that was the initial Weinstein line, as I did bad things,
but like, it's not like he's that old, you know, No,
(12:32):
he's not. He's not. Also pretty sure Steven Spielberg's is older.
He's got a lot of power. I don't think he
raped dozens of people. Yeah, I mean, he may have
been creepy, but he certainly didn't do this. That's I
hate that whole He's too old. He doesn't understand. It's like, sure,
you could say that for Twitter, but you can't see
that for harassing and sexually assaulting women. I'm sorry, but
(12:54):
even back in the day it wasn't okay to sexually
assault a woman. You could say that if he was
calling women doll in the office and needed a talking to.
You can't say that when he grabs Rosemagowan and forces. Yeah.
So shoving someone's head on your dick is not the
old You can't use the old man excuse anymore. Yeah,
it's it's not Yeah, it just doesn't fly anymore. Um
(13:20):
So yeah, So Lisa Bloom's role in the Weinstein machine
um was basically assuring the world that Harvey was very
sorry about being a bad boy and totally committed to
doing better. Uh. Some people attacked her for this seeming
betrayal of all the victims she's represented, and an interview
with The l A Times, Lisa explained that those women
were why she decided to work with Harvey. Quote, every day,
there's a woman in my office crying, Why won't he
(13:41):
just admit it? Why does this have to be an
open wound for my entire life. I don't want to
litigate Lisa. Almost every single one comes to me and says,
if he would just apologize, then we could move on,
in quote which I feel like it's kind of bullshit.
If he again, if he had been really rude to
a lot of women, that would make sense. But he
committed crimes. The ants her to a man who rapes
(14:01):
dozens of women probably is not make him apologize, it's
make him go to jail pay for his crimes. Yeah,
and again she says she didn't know about the rape
or the assault. Um, maybe that's true. Uh, maybe they
offered her a lot of money. Maybe I'm certain they
offered her a lot of money. Based on my understanding
of her, she seemed like she was she she knew
(14:22):
what she was doing. And then this happens, and it's like,
I don't understand It's it's either a lot of money.
Some of it may have been. You know, Harvey was
a big progressive donor, you know, big donor to thee
we get into the Clintons a little bit, big donor
to a lot of good causes. Uh, and maybe she
thought he deserved a second chance or something. It felt
(14:43):
like she would know better that this kind of person
is not someone you can just make apologize and all
these women who have been harmed by him can just
snap back like, well he said sorry, So now all
my PTSD from being sexually assaulted. We'll just walk right
out the door, and I'm fine, let's go get some coffee.
Like it's so much more than that. They're so much
more many. I'm about to lose my mind. Well, and
(15:03):
that quote from the l A Times from her makes
me think that she's full of ship because the way
she outlines that conversation with him sounds like a scene
in a movie with the music swells and I just
want to try to Yeah, and then it's like Pygmalion,
but with sexism. Um, Harvey, you gotta try give me
(15:24):
a break. Yeah. Um So. Lisa bloom Uh insists that
Harvey Weinstein dictated the entire apology that he sent out
after the New York Times article was released. It's my
personal conspiracy theory based on the things I've read about her,
that bloom either outline wrote his apology or heavily influenced
it with direct advice on what to say. I'm going
to read the apology and let me not believe you. Yeah, okay, okay,
(15:47):
Well then I'll go into a couple of lines from
the apology that makes me. First, it starts with them saying,
I came of age in the sixties and seventies when
all the rules of behavior in workplaces where different. That
was the culture. Then obviously one of her first things
was saying, he's a dinosaur is from a different era. Uh.
He apologizes uh in the apology to all anyone he
may have hurt, which is at the time it came out,
(16:07):
at the start of this me too thing, that was
not the standard for a man who had been accused
of this. It was like denied, denied, andy um, which
again makes me think that that this is because she
was big on no, you've got to apologize, you don't deny,
you hit it on, which is again good advice if
you're not a rapist, if you're just a guy who
fucked up um. But then Harvey says, over the last year,
(16:29):
I've asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me, and she's put
together a team of people I brought on therapists, and
I plan to take a leave of absence from my
company to deal with this issue head on, and then
he misquotes jay Z lyrics YadA YadA, YadA, and he
ends by saying that he's going to give the n
r A his full attention. So he goes through his
whole apology where he's saying, like, I've been trying to
do this for ten years. This is a wake up call.
(16:49):
I can't be more remorseful about the people I've hurt,
and I plan to do right by all of them.
And then he says, I'm going to need a place
to channel that anger. So I've decided that I'm going
to give the n r A my full attention. I
hope Wayne Lappy will enjoy his retirement party. I'm going
to do it at the same place I had my
bar Mitzvah. I'm making a movie about our president. Perhaps
we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago,
I began organizing a five million dollar foundation to give
(17:12):
scholarships to women directors at USC. Well, this might seem coincidental.
It has been in the works for a year. It
will be named after my mom, and I won't disappoint her. Yeah. No,
it's it's like the sleaziest fucking thing in the world west, Um,
and I feel like her hands are all over that. Um.
You know, I feel like rarely are people like that
are allowed to actually put their own thoughts because they
(17:32):
can be such wild cards. Yeah, and and why would
you want to if you've just hired this woman whose
whole job is number one, she's got street cred as
someone who's represented a lot of women in these cases. Like,
I feel like it was either the money or the
prestige of getting to reform someone like Weinstein, that that
that got her in. But she definitely compromised. Her mother's
a famous uh rights her most glory already. Yes, it
(17:56):
wasn't her mom kind of like, yeah, her mom was
so thing along the lines of, if I have to
go into court against Weinstein and fight my daughter in court,
I'll be willing to do it something like that. Before
you spoke up, I said the word compromised about Lisa Bloom,
and I was going to use that as a lead
into our ads by saying you won't have to compromise
with these products and or services which were now advertising.
(18:20):
So that's what I did. We're back and we're talking
about Lisa Bloom and Harvey Weinstein. Uh, Like, I don't
wanna say that if if the women Lisa Boom was
talking to, we're saying all they wanted was an apology
in their specific cases. I'm not saying that they're wrong
(18:41):
or anything. But at the point at which she was
saying this, there were people who were out and vocal
about the stuff that Harvey had done, um, including Rose mcgawan,
I'm pretty sure, and those people were not happy with
just an apology. So I don't know, it seems a
little messed up to me. Maybe she just really thought
he was just a sexual harasser. I don't know. Uh,
(19:03):
it's probably worth noting that, Uh. I mean, there's a
couple of things that are worth noting here when we
talk about her culpability. First of all, is that she
left Weinstein's employ like immediately after everything broke, like like
a couple of days after. I think she was on
Good Morning America. I think forty eight hours after the
article dropped. She was out. Um, she distanced herself from
(19:27):
Weinstein once the rape allegations, you know, way in over
her head. Yeah, Like wait a second, Yeah, she said,
I was never aware there were allegations of sexual assault.
Should I have, based on my log experience as a
sexual harassment lawyer, assumed that it could have been a
lot worse than what I knew. Yes, I should have
assumed that that's on me. Um, So she acknowledged a
funk up. Mose McGowan did claim that before she was fired,
(19:51):
Lisa Bloom offered her money if she quote got on
the Harvey's changed bandwagon. Lisa has denied this. Another Lisa
Bloom client was Roy Rice, Amazon studio chief, and also
the recipient of his own sexual harassment allegations. Kim Masters,
the journalist who broke the price story, claims Lisa quote
spread rumors about her in order to kill a story.
(20:12):
Lisa has also denied this. For her part, Lisa Bloom
has admitted that representing Harvey was a huge mistake. She
hasn't said whether or not the fact that the Weinstein
Company was looking at turning her book about Trayvon Martin
into a TV show had anything to do with her
support for Harvey. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. That's
what's power and money is so it will make people
(20:34):
just lose their ability to just see right from wrong,
and and that that's really like the core of this
story because he was one of the very few people
in the world who could make anything a movie or
a TV show. If because if he really, if he
did snap his fingers and say, your books a TV
it's a TV show. He's got that kind of cache
he made. Fucking yeah. So I hope their Thanksgiving with
(20:54):
her mother was so awkward and just filled with silent
looks of disapproval towards her. And I hope that her
book about Trayvon Martin, well, I don't know, like it's
like I want to say, I hope it didn't do well,
but it's an important story. That's crazy. Is she another
one of those people who publicly champions women and women's
(21:16):
rights and all this stuff and then is privately like
just here for showing her reputation as a certain I
were dying? Is she making the calculation? The world's an
ugly place. You know, you gotta win when you can,
and everything is not going to be a victory. Uh.
This guy is a creep, But the Trayvon Martin story
(21:36):
is important, and if I work with him, I can
get my book made into a TV show and we'll
do more net good than the harm that I'll do
by helping this creep look like he's reformed. I don't know,
I don't know. I struggle with that so much because, yeah,
that story is important, but championing like this white male
who is has allegations against him that are just so
(21:59):
dark and fucked up. Again, this is me seeing it
through my own bias, But it's just too much like
I will never be able to understand people who could
do that. I mean, you know, give me five years,
maybe I make a certain amount of money and next
thing you know, I'm supporting Harvey Weinstein, who knows it's
a mess. The amounts five million dollars. Everyone who's worth
(22:22):
five million or more is a fan of his. Okay,
to me in a few years and see if I
have the money. Uh so, yeah, I'm comfortable throwing some
judgment Lisa Bloom's way. Um, and while we're talking about
famous people that we want to judge, it's time to
move on to my favorite candidate for a bastard of
this podcast, Ben Affleck. Now, in case you didn't know,
(22:45):
have you heard of Ben Affleck? This guy? Have I? Ah?
He is a man with a terrible back tattoo who
became rich and famous thanks to a movie called good
Will Hunting and now he is Batman. Good Will Hunting
was produced by Harvey Weinstein. I think Clerks as well.
He was in there, right yeah, Um, anyway, no, no,
he was just he's just a friend of Kevin Smith. Right,
(23:06):
but he wasn't in that. No, he was in They
did like Dogma or something together, Dogma, that's what it was. Yeah,
and he's definitely in Dogma, right, Yeah, he isn't, and
so is Damon anyway. Uh so, Ben Affleck. Five days
after the New York Times article dropped, Affleck released a
statement that he was angry over the allegations about Weinstein
and said quote, I find myself asking what I can
(23:27):
do to make sure this doesn't happen to others. He
took a lot of flak for being late to the
apology table because most of the people who had worked
closely with Weinstein had said something much faster. Um. I'm
not sure how to fairy think that that accusation is.
But Rose McGowan was very angry at him. She tweeted
this response after he sent out his statement at Ben Affleck,
(23:49):
God damn it. I told him to stop doing that.
You said that to my face the press conference I
was made to go to after the assault. You lie.
So for a little bit of backstory, her claim is
that Weinstein raped her in a I think it was
a jacuzzi. Uh, And immediately afterwards she had to go
do like a press junket thing, and Ben Affleck saw
her like shaking and traumatized like you'd be after a rape.
(24:12):
And I I was like, what's going on? And she told
him what had happened, and then he said, God damn it.
I told him to stop doing that, which is what
eating too much makes something so basic. That's a weird reaction,
but gosh, darn, I think it's been. Affleck was like, oh, traumatized.
I know I have to be angry, so all feint anger.
I'm Ben Affleck, human robots. Why don't you call the
(24:34):
police instead of just telling him call the someone just
reported a rape to you, Harvey, Please Harvey, not again. Um. So,
Weinstein's defense team jumped on this as an excuse to
discredit Rose McGowan. Uh. They published an email from Affleck
(24:54):
to Weinstein in early two and sixteen, before the accusations broke,
say I have no idea of anything wrong you do. Yeah,
that's exactly what it says. It's titled Rose McGowan, and
Ben Affleck says she never told me, nor did I
ever infer that she was attacked by anyone. Any accounts
to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about
anything Rose did or claimed to have done. Accounts otherwiser lies.
(25:16):
This is what he said to Weinstein in a private
email that then Weinstein had released in order to try
to how I send private emails to just in case
someone needs to release it in the future. Uh So,
Affleck publicly says he supports and believes Rose McGowan. He's
against Weinstein on this. I don't think he's addressed that
email directly, but what this says to me is that
Affleck is like, it's just a gutless people pleaser um.
(25:39):
He sees her traumatized, and so he does what he
thinks she'll appreciate. In the moment, Harvey asks him if
she said anything, and he denies it. Now that the
issues public, he's gonna take Rose aside because he knows
which way is the wind's blowing. But he's basically a
coward um. Like that's that's Ben Affleck in a nutshell.
I'm feeling. Um yeah, and I think it's starting to
weare on him because now he just looks crazy in
any photo, like he's been rinking and he always looks
(26:01):
like he just stopped crying. And the back tat you've
seen the backdown. It's falcon. It is an abomination. It's
it's garbage, is what it is. It looks like it
looks like the eagle on the Mexican flag had a
baby with like a bad watercolor painting of Snoopy and
(26:25):
or a phoenix. It's it's just bad, it's stupid. I'm
bad at describing tattoos as well, which is my other podcast,
Robert Evans describes tattoos poorly. Um, but we'll have a
picture of his terrible back tattoo. Um oh yeah. And
since the whole meto Dan Broke, Ben Affleck has been
accused of groping and harassment by several women. There's a
box article we'll throw up on the side that gives
(26:46):
a good breakdown number of bits on video you can
actually like see the Hillary. It's amazing. What a fucking
creepy is Um. He's apologized for that, and he seems
to be hoping his side of things blows over. Uh yeah, yeah, Um,
I don't know. This is the point, Like, again, we're
(27:07):
already very late into this. We've talked about a lot
of people. I've done a lot of research. I don't
really know where to stop when it comes to bring
it people who might have been complicit. They're like the
clear cases, the honey pots, the lawyers, the spies, the
journalists that he had working with him. I have one
question for you. Yeah, do you think because Meryl Streep
(27:27):
came out and said I had no idea, do you
think she had any sense of it? She's the one
I never could figure out. I could see it being
possible because she was has been such a huge star
the entire time Mabbie Weinstein has been worth talking about.
Um that maybe she was protected. Maybe Number one, he
was like because he usually went with people to start
of their career or kind of early on, that he
(27:50):
that he had some because nobody's got leverage over Meryl Streep.
So I could definitely see he never was creepy to her,
because that would have been suicide. That's the thing. I
feel like she was out of powerful enough bubble that
they were almost protecting her from such knowledge. And I
think that's possible because it also I doubt anyone would
have needed to warn her about him because she's sucking
Meryl Streep. She's not going to wind up in that situation. Um,
(28:13):
she's just too famous and rich. That said, UM, it
does seem like almost everybody who was famous and in
movies pretty much knew what Harvey Weinstein was, and I'd
be kind of surprised if she'd never heard anything. Was
she ever involved in any of the movies he produced?
I mean, Mirror Max made a shipload of stuff, So
I'm sure at some point they had crossed the paths
(28:33):
because yeah, she's in a lot of stuff. Yeah, I
don't know, like that's Mama Mia, But that just feels
like like a mirror Max Weinstein situation. I didn't find
any clear evidence of her being, you know, a complicit
in any of this. I didn't find any clear evidence
of his wife being complicit Georgina, and she said that
(28:54):
she didn't even know he was cheating on her. And
it's not impossible like they spent a lot of time
up art. Harvey was always in hotels, and it's always
in hotels and stuff. And in private apartments that he
had his assistants keep for him, Like he had private
bang apartments and stuff. Um, yeah, as assistants would keep
them stocked with lingerie and one notot. So it's possible
she didn't. Yeah. I mean, he also seems like he
(29:16):
could be like an annoying husband, So I'm sure she
was fine with him, Like, yeah, I wouldn't want to
be around, Um it was. I don't. Again, It's it's
kind of tough where to draw the line at, like
people to stop searching for complicity, And I think Hillary
Clinton might wind up on the list. If we have
a wide enough definition of an annoying I would agree
with that. Yeah. Yeah. Weinstein donated her and her husband
(29:39):
huge amounts of money over the years. He invited Hillary
to movie premiers. He helped advisor Senate campaign in two thousands.
Back in during the election, Lena Dunham warned the Clinton
campaign that Harvey was quote a rapist. UH magazine editor
Tina Brown also warned members of the campaign about Weinstein.
No actions were taken by anyone in the Clinton camp
to distance themselves from Weinstein. Several days after losing the
(29:59):
elect and the Clinton's had dinner with Harvey. They were
planning a new TV documentary about her campaign. The talks
only stopped after the New York Times article dropped. See
that's the thing is Hillary feels like a woman of convenience.
And if it does not directly affect her and the
cloud isn't over his head yet, what does that mean
to her? Yeah, she's not affected by any of these people.
(30:20):
He's not going to hurt her. Yeah, yeah, I would
say that's probably fair. But the Weinstein story is so
gross that even a lot of the guys who like
when you read through the New York articles and stuff,
there's a couple of people from within the Weinstein company
who seemed like good guys um at least on on
first blush. Ivan Writer is one of them. He was
(30:41):
a senior executive with the Weinstein Company. He should have
been running Farrell, running Pharaoh's articles a lot um he was.
He worked with Harvey for decades and when he learned
that Lisa Evans from our last podcast had been harassed
by Weinstein, he reached out to her and he basically
told her that I fought with him about the mistreatment
of woman for three weeks before the incident with you.
(31:01):
I even wrote him an email that got me labeled
by him a sex police. The fight I had with
him about you was epic. I told him if you
were my daughter, he would not have made out so well. Um,
and this is not someone who alleges Harvey raped her,
by the way. This is so. Writer definitely opposed Weinstein
from within the company. He refused to speak favorably of
him to reporters, even when Harvey threatened to dig up
(31:21):
dirt on him. He seems like one of the few
good guys in this situation, but it's also worth noting
that he only really started fighting back in two thousand fourteen,
and his objections to Harvey were on financial grounds. Basically,
he found out that Weinstein had been using his company
credit card to pay to tip yacht staff, private jet
flights to Europe to like fly models around and stuff
(31:43):
for basically things to do with his affairs. He was
using the company as a separate exactly, And that's when
Ivan Writer really really start to care when money was involved. Yeah,
here's how the New York Times put it. Concerned that
his boss's activities were quote going to take the company down.
Mr Writer and other executives decided they should act. Wow,
So it was mostly self interest, mostly self interest. So again,
(32:06):
everyone in this story only does anything good or evil
in fairness when their career is And I also don't
like that line if you were my daughter, It's like, yeah,
who cares who she's Yeah, like this is a human being, yeah,
which is again like I don't want to like yell
at him for being the one person who actually spoke
(32:27):
to one of his victims and was like, this is
fucked up because no one else did, so he gets
some credit, but like, good is a low bar in
the Harvey Weinstein story. It's like you still didn't call
the police, Like you didn't say anything to anyone else? Really, yeah,
it is. It is a very low bar. Another possible
hero in this is a woman named Donna Gigliotti. Helped
(32:49):
one of Harvey's victims seek legal counsel and advised her
and how to get a good settlement out of him,
because he settled with like a dozen women over the years,
which again people knew about this stuff. There were accusations
he just was able to pay it off for a
long time. Um, And Donna Gigliotti is one of the
women who knew about this because she helped one of
these victims. But in two thousand ten, when Harvey offered
her a job as president of production at the Weinstein Company,
(33:11):
she took it. Yeah's got a price. It's so crazy.
Everybody's got a price, and everyone is willing to do
pretty much whatever it takes to keep their career rolling along,
which I guess you could call Hollywood in a nutshell,
even though I don't want to believe that because I
fucking work here too. Scared me, Like, who am I
going to become? Yeah? Yeah, well you just wait till
(33:32):
you hit that five million dollar mark again. It's hard
not to read all of this and to come to
the conclusion that there was just way too much money
at stake for the people involved to not be gross. Um.
Staying blind to Harvey's crimes or just enabling him meant
tens of millions of dollars. It seems almost nobody is
capable of turning that down. Uh. In October of two seventeen,
Scott Rosenberg, screenwriter of Beautiful Girls, posted his thoughts about
(33:55):
Harvey Weinstein on Facebook. Scott wrote from Miramax in the
early nineties. He credit Weinstein with helping himsell his first
two movies. He was there for many of the biggest
years of Weinstein's career when he in Tarantino and Affleck,
we're all watching their careers explode into the stratosphere. So
I'm going to read a selection from the post that
he wrote. It was glorious, all of it. So what
if he was coming on a little strong to some
(34:16):
young models who had moved mountains to get into one
of his parties. So what if he was exposing himself
and five star hotel rooms like a cartoon flasher out
of Mad magazine. Just swap robe for raincoat? Who are
we to call foul? Golden geese don't come along too
often in one's life, which goes back to my original point.
Everybody fucking new, but everybody was just having too good
a time and doing remarkable work, making remarkable movies. As
(34:39):
the old joke goes, we needed the eggs. Okay, maybe
we didn't need them, but we really, really, really really
liked them eggs. So we were willing to overlook what
the golden goose was up to in the murky shadows
behind the barn. And for that I am eternally sorry
all the women who that had to suffer this. I
am eternally sorry. I've worked with Mira and Rosanna and Lysette,
I've known Os and Ashley and Claire for years. Their
(35:01):
courage only hangs a lantern on my shame, and I
am eternally sorry to all those who suffered in silence
all this time and have chosen to remain silent today.
So Scott's opinion seems to be that he's a bastard
and so has been afflecked. So is Clinton Tarantino and
probably the Clinton's too. I'm gonna guess Scott would classify
everybody we've talked about today, the honeypots, the assistants, the lawyers,
(35:21):
the journalists, the spies, is the same kind of complicit
because when it comes right down to it, the ex
massad agents are guilty of the same basic crime has
been afflecked. They could live with the knowledge that an
old creep was molesting young women as long as the
money was good enough. Boy. Yeah, that's a happy ending
for our podcast today. Well how you feeling, Ana, I
(35:44):
feel lost. I feel confused. I did always say that
if if I would ever hire a bodyguard, it would
be a massad agent because I knew they would do
whatever they could to protect me. Well yeah, I mean,
if you're gonna hire someone to dig up dirt, it
seems like black cubes good at it, although they didn't
stop that article from dropping. Well, that's the thing is
(36:05):
like the power of the people is so important, and
I think that's that was so key in bringing down Weinstein.
Like all of this like everyone knew and I for
a second when you were reading that, I like almost understood,
and there was like a moment of my like psyche orles,
like whoa, what am I doing? Like when you're at
that level and you're having fun, you're like, yeah, Harvey
(36:27):
is fucking crazy, you know, and then you're just doing
your thing because you're in this world. But it's impossible
to take yourself out of that bubble and be like,
wait a second, that's harassment. Actually you can't see past
it because you're like everyone's having a damn good times
and you're all making so much money. Yeah yeah, and
that is so fucking heavy. I can't. Yeah. Well, and
(36:50):
it's I promised not to turn any more of these
into like you know, anti capitalist RNSW or whatever, but
it is impossible to deny that. Yeah, it's not just
that he had the ability to make people's careers. He
had the ability to with anybody he helped out end
there financial woes forever. Like, it's whatever you're worried about,
(37:12):
whatever you're scared about, whatever your anxiety is. You get
a kid at home who's sick, you have to pay
for your kid to go to college. You know, you've
got you know, a mortgage payment, do or whatever. Harvey
can make that go away forever, and all you have
to do is be okay with him being a creeper. Yeah.
And I think most of us sitting down and reading
(37:34):
Ronan Pharaoh's articles, most of us condemning Harvey Weinstein, most
of us condemning all these people. I think most people,
if they were in the situation a lot of these
folks were if they didn't know exactly what had gone on.
They weren't sure that it was rape. They just knew
that it was fucked up and there was a lot
of money on the line. I think most people help
keep the secret. Yeah, that's my dark theory. Yeah, I
(37:59):
think if I were to look back, maybe I would too.
I don't know. I certainly probably if there was enough
pressure on me, I would crumble. I mean, I feel
like I'm an anxious enough person that literally what I
would do probably would keep the secret but then move
away and just try and put it behind me. Even
(38:21):
if if I was an assistant and I was put
in that position and I was asked to do that,
I probably wouldn't do it. But I also probably wouldn't
have said anything. That's that's what breaks my own I
just and I feel like, you know, I feel like
I might be the screenwriter in this who was willing
to cash the check and ignore the creep, and who
(38:43):
when it all came out, posted a very eloquent article
apologizing but still made that money, still stack, that paper
still benefited. Yeah, it's easy to apologize now after all
these years. Yeah, which is again it's a very eloquent
apology and better than any of the other apologies. So
he gets some at it for that um and credit
for acknowledging that everybody was garbage in this situation. But
(39:05):
I do think that going back to my original question
at the top of this podcast, who are all of
the bastards in the Harvey Weinstein story? Well, it's like
he said, it's every fucking body. Yeah, oh Anna, you
wanna plug some stuff. You guys, just be good people.
It's like, don't hurt anybody. For the love of God,
don't hurt anybody. Don't use your power against vulnerable people.
(39:29):
Just because someone works below you does not mean they
owe you anything. No one knows you anything, nothing belongs
to you. You sit there and keep your head down,
work hard, and don't let anyone take advantage of you.
And if you ever need to stand up against someone
who is powerful, Oh God be with you. I don't
even know. I don't even know if I believe in God,
but Jesus Christ, I hope, I hope you make it
(39:49):
out because this industry is so aggressive when it comes
to just the big dogs taken down the little dogs.
I don't even and know. It's crazy to think that
I work in this industry and I don't know what
I would do. Well, Yeah, we're we're talking about a
lot of this stuff, and it's probably the crimesy committed
(40:12):
happened within ten miles of where we're sitting right now. Yeah. Yeah,
we're in Hollywood right or in Florida. Yeah, that's that's heartbreaking.
It's actually one of the places that he would go
to the Peninsula Hotel. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
place I when a few jobs ago. I would go
there a lot for work. And I think when I
(40:33):
started reading that and I start I just like started
to make that connection, and I was like, oh no,
I really hope I was never in that hotel around
the same time, because that is horrifying to think about.
Oh God, and how I find to think about what
the wait staff at the Peninsula Hotel and the Tribeca
Grand must have had to clean up. Oh yeah, and
that whole like he's back all right, Well I can't really.
(40:56):
I mean, I'm sure the gossip was there, but like
you can't do anything and that that's heartbreaking. Yeah yeah,
it is. Uh all right, well, um, this has been
Behind the Bastards. Check back next week when we'll talk
about something that's more fun but still a terrible person.
I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on Twitter at
(41:17):
I Write Okay two letters, and you can find this
podcast on Twitter at Bastard's pot If you can find
us on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com,
will be putting up a selection of Harvey Weinstein looking
just like the creepiest egg that ever fell out of
a basket, and also pictures of him with Ben Affleck
and Ben Affleck's terrible back tattoo. Ben Affleck's catching a
(41:38):
lot of flak this podcast, but I feel like that's fine. Yeah,
he made his bed and now he has to rub
his terrible tattoo on him. All right until next week.
I'm Robert Evans. Have a bastardless day.
Hello, dear Internet friends. I'm Robert Evans, and this is
again Behind the Bastards, the show where we tell you
everything you don't know about the very worst people in
all of history. And this is part two of our
two part our episode on a Harvey Weinstein. In part one,
we started outlining all of the different people who had
to essentially compromise their morality, do artwright terrible things or
(00:24):
questionable things in order to allow Harvey to prey on
women and get away with it for decades. Uh. And
in this episode, we're doing more of that, starting with
Harvey Weinstein's spy army. But before we get into that,
I would like to introduce my guest for this episode. Uh,
same guest we had last time, Anna hosnia Ho, host
of the Ethnically Ambiguous podcast and other things. Thank you
(00:47):
for having me. Yeah, alright, we're getting back into Harvey
weinstein spy army. Uh. So, Harvey Weinstein's net worth, at
least before all this came crashing down on him, was
generally reported as being in the two D three hundred
million dollar reign. Uh this meant really because could you imagine?
So this this means he has enough disposable income to
(01:11):
not just buy off people, but pay for these services
of companies. Uh. Two days ago we talked about a
company called Kroll. Um. When however, you would settle with people,
he would have the security company go through their phones
and electronic devices. Right in fun fact, it's Nick Kroll's
family comedian. Really yeah, same family. Really, that's his grandfather's company.
(01:35):
Well that's unsettling. Really. Two days ago, when I was like, oh,
that's a familiar name, you didn't catch what I meant.
I'm just crazy. No, No, I didn't catch with him
as at all. And I didn't even think about like
I figured it was like Kroll was some sort of
weird acronym for something, because it was like, okay, well,
so Weinstein hired Kroll security services to do things like
(01:56):
when he would settle with a woman, they would go
through all of that lady stuff vices to make sure
she hadn't recorded Weinstein saying anything, didn't have any pictures
of him. It was part of how he sort of
cleaned up after himself. Um. And in two thousand sixteen,
Dan Carson, chairman of Kroll's Investigations and Disputes Division, sent
Harvey eleven photos of Rose McGowan and he together at
events over the years since the alleged assault. Um. These
(02:19):
were photographs of them having conversations, smiling. Kroll's whole goal
there was to find as many pictures as they could
of Rose McGowan talking to Harvey Weinstein and looking comfortable
to use against her, to use against her. Look at them,
What a great relationship they love each other. If she
had a problem with him, why is she smiling in
this picture with him stuck in a system that's oppressing
(02:40):
her from start to the end. You know, no big deal. Yeah. So,
as soon as he got the photos from Kroll, Harvey
sent them over to his defense attorney, who called one
picture of Rose and Harvey having a friendly chat quote
the money shot, which is disturbing. Yeah, it's like a
omelet of grossness. Um. When Weinstein was meeting with the
reporter from New York magazine, Krol sent him a summary
(03:02):
of criticisms of the reporter's past work, as well as
a profile on the reporter's ex wife, noting it quote
might prove relevant to considerations of our response strategy when
Wallace's article and our client is finally published. So Basically
he get to use Kroll is sort of like an
external brain almost like he's like, this woman is going
to come out. I need someone to go through publicly
available images and find everything you can that makes her
(03:25):
look like my friend or whatever. That's what this company
would do for him. It's Skivie. But nothing he's using
Kroll for is super nefarious. It's just more like a
story manipulator. Yeah, I need someone to Google for a
long time and so that I can then use the
information they bring up. So that's that's what Kroll is doing.
So I guess in Nick Kroll's family's defense, nothing that
(03:45):
I've read about them doing is nightmarish. Yet that changes
when we get to a little company Weinstein also hired
called Black Cube Legends. Yeah. So, Black Cube's website describes
the company as quote a select group of veterans from
the Israeli elite intelligence units that specializes in tailored solutions
to complex business and litigation challenges. Yeah. Um, so I
(04:10):
spent some time on their website. I figured that Black
Cubes work for Weinstein would fall under the litigation challenges
category because it seems like a challenging case with like
eighty five women accusing him. Now, Uh so, I'm mosied
over to the litigation support section of their website and
I read it. Now, I'm gonna read it to you.
Understanding your opponent is a key element when building a
(04:30):
strategy for a complex situation. Black Cube supports litigation processes
by identifying your opponents vulnerabilities, interests, priorities, and strategy using
our unique intelligence methodology. Black Cube enhances its clients decision
making by providing otherwise unobtainable information. We help our clients
identify their adversaries sensitive points or vulnerabilities or evidence of
(04:54):
their misconduct. Sounds like a show that Shonda Rhimes would make. Sorry,
I was that too much of a deep cut? That was?
That was a deeper cut than I was comfortable. Murd
political operatives who are trying to find ways to use
something against you, Well, that's exactly what they're doing. That's
exactly how they frame it. Is like, we're helping our
(05:16):
clients the adversaries and like yet when the reality is
that they were helping a multiple rapist attack women. Yeah,
well it's not Sully the good name of fixers. I've
known a lot of great fixers in my time, but
a lot of fixers do tend to get their hands dirty. Yeah,
and these people get their hands very dirty. In mayen,
(05:36):
Rose McGowan got an email from Diana Philip, a high
ranking executive at Reuben Capital Partners. Philip explained that she
was funding a program to fight workplace discrimination and wanted
to know if Rose would speak at the program's kickoff event.
She offered to pay sixty dollars, which I talked to
anybody for sixty grand um. The two women met three
(05:57):
times over the next two months to talk about women's
empowerment and other issues. Rose found her very kind, and
eventually Diana Philip offered to invest in Rose McGowan's production company.
During one of their talks, McGowan mentioned that she was
talking to run In Pharaoh about Weinstein. A week later,
Philip emailed Pharaoh and asked him to meet with her.
Pharaoh ever responded, because he's a smart guy. Yeah, he's
smells smells weird. When The New Yorker published his first
(06:19):
big Weinstein story three months later, Diana Philip email Rose mcgallan, high, love,
how are you feeling? Just wanted to tell you how
brave I think you are. As you might have guessed
Diana Philip isn't a real person. It's an alias made
up by a former Israeli intelligence officer working for Black Cube.
Philip and her entire company and its online footprint were
all inventions of Black Cube. Uh In. A story just
(06:41):
came out like the day we recorded this podcast. I
think NBC put it out where Black Cube was also
fishing around the wives of several Obama administration employees to
try and find compromising information it could use to make
the Iran deal look bad. And the capital company that
they pretended to be from was the same capital company.
(07:03):
They just have this one fake company that they always
pretend to work with, even for the stories have been
out for a while. And the thing is they email
pretending to be someone else trying to help you to
get into your life. Yeah, usually pretend to be someone
with money so that they can be like, oh, I'm
looking at investing, or I can help you set up
this or that. Literally never responding to an email again. Yeah,
never never let anyone give you money. They are I
(07:28):
won't even take pay for work. Um. So, one of
the men who helped Weinstein coordinate his espionage efforts and
really handled like the direct interface and with Black Cube
was an attorney named David boys Um. He has an
otherwise laudable career. He defended al Gore in the two
thousand election dispute, and he argued for marriage equality with
(07:49):
the Supreme Court. So like seems like a great guy.
Mm hmm, Yeah, seems like he's on the right back.
That's actually terrifying. Yeah. That that you can be on
the right side of history arguing in favor of gay
marriage to the Supreme Court and then on the other side,
help manage Harvey Weinstein, inspire me jesus, trust no one man, Well,
(08:13):
just don't trust lawyers, for fucking sure. Um. So, in
two seventeen, while he was working for Weinstein, David Boye
signed a contract with Black Cube that defined their primary
objectives as to quote, provide intelligence which will help the
client's efforts to completely stop the publication of a new
negative article in a leading New York newspaper. Now at
this point I should note that this leading New York
(08:34):
newspaper was The New York Times. Um. Yeah, so that
first article was Megan Tawhey and Joey Canter Um. Apologies
if I'm mispronouncing that, but this is the article that
Boys in Black Cube were trying to stop. Now there
it seems like there might be a conflict of interest
there because David Boys and his firm, we're working for
the New York Times as well defending them in a
(08:55):
libel case at the same time. So obviously when Ronan
Row got into his reporting, he interviewed Boys and he
was like, this seems like a giant fucking conflict. Boys
actually would speak to him, Yeah, Boys did speak to
him as representative for Weinstein. No, No, just talking to
him like as him because because Pharaoh had specific questions
(09:16):
about Boys's work with Weinstein. Um, and I think he
just decided like it was better to talk than to
than to not for whatever reason. Um. But when he
was he was a question if this was a conflict
of interest, um, because he was working for the New
York Times. He basically said that it wasn't a conflict
of interest because of Black Cube had found information that
showed the that Weinstein's accusers were lying, then that would
(09:39):
be in the Times's best interest convenient Yeah, exactly. He's
he's a gigantic weasel. Um. Which is kind of a
bummer from a guy who otherwise sounded like a crusading
hero lawyer. And he's not the only progressive gold star
to get tarnished by the living poop cloud that is
Hardy Weinstein. You've heard of Lisa Bloom, Yeah, oh yeah,
oh yeah yeah. She's an American civil Right It's attorney.
(10:00):
She represented the women whose sexual assault allegations got Bill
O'Reilly fired two sixteen. She represented several women who claimed
Donald Trump had sexually assaulted them. Uh. You remember the
anonymous woman who said that then candidate Trump had raped
her when she was thirteen. She was supposed to reveal
herself at a press conference, but backed away at the
last moment under threats. Lisa Bloom was her attorney as well.
She was also Black China's attorney. She was Black Giants attorney. Yes,
(10:24):
um so Lisa Bloom another person with a great reputation,
particularly when it comes to defending women who have been
abused by powerful men. Uh. And in fall of two
thousand and sixteen, Lisa Bloom took a job with Harvey Weinstein. Uh,
it sounded like the board was worried about the mountain
of complaints and accusations. The story hadn't entirely broken yet.
But you know, Rose McGowan, I think was still was
(10:45):
open at this point, and it was they were basically
trying to have her counsel him into being a better
person so that it would improve his personal pr and
maybe help them get out ahead of any future stories
that came out. I hate that kind of stuff. Yeah,
it's gross. So she's at down with Weinstein to decide
she wanted to take this job, and she says that
he admitted that he had quote verbally made a lot
(11:06):
of inappropriate remarks to women, both inside the workplace and
outside the workplace end quote. But she's claiming she did
not know anything about the abuse. Yes, that's why she
took the gig. She's claiming she thought that he was
admitting to being a gross guy who's actually her asked
women but not assaulted and raped them. Um, and so
(11:26):
she thought it was an opportunity to to teach him
and make him a better person. She lectured to him
that the hitting on these women wasn't okay because of
the power and balance. Uh. And I'm going to I'm
gonna quote from the n l A Times article here,
which is quoting Lisa Bloom. He would repeat back to
me the power imbalance, Lisa, I get it, I see it.
He choked up. I don't know what's wrong with me.
(11:47):
I'm sick, I'm stupid. I've hurt people. What can I
do now? And I said, you need to apologize. You
can't turn back time, but you can do the right
thing now. Don't go after the women and get help
and stop it. He said, will you work with me
to do that? And I said yes, I will. So God,
that sounds so pr like it's super gross, wrote that
(12:09):
Lisa Bloom. Uh. Yeah, So when the New York Times
article dropped, Lisa Bloom showed up on Good Morning America
to call Weinstein's behavior gross, but also to say that
he was genuinely remorseful. Um. She said he was an
old dinosaur struggling to adapt to new ways, basically, and
that was the initial Weinstein line, as I did bad things,
but like, it's not like he's that old, you know, No,
(12:32):
he's not. He's not. Also pretty sure Steven Spielberg's is older.
He's got a lot of power. I don't think he
raped dozens of people. Yeah, I mean, he may have
been creepy, but he certainly didn't do this. That's I
hate that whole He's too old. He doesn't understand. It's like, sure,
you could say that for Twitter, but you can't see
that for harassing and sexually assaulting women. I'm sorry, but
(12:54):
even back in the day it wasn't okay to sexually
assault a woman. You could say that if he was
calling women doll in the office and needed a talking to.
You can't say that when he grabs Rosemagowan and forces. Yeah.
So shoving someone's head on your dick is not the
old You can't use the old man excuse anymore. Yeah,
it's it's not Yeah, it just doesn't fly anymore. Um
(13:20):
So yeah, So Lisa Bloom's role in the Weinstein machine
um was basically assuring the world that Harvey was very
sorry about being a bad boy and totally committed to
doing better. Uh. Some people attacked her for this seeming
betrayal of all the victims she's represented, and an interview
with The l A Times, Lisa explained that those women
were why she decided to work with Harvey. Quote, every day,
there's a woman in my office crying, Why won't he
(13:41):
just admit it? Why does this have to be an
open wound for my entire life. I don't want to
litigate Lisa. Almost every single one comes to me and says,
if he would just apologize, then we could move on,
in quote which I feel like it's kind of bullshit.
If he again, if he had been really rude to
a lot of women, that would make sense. But he
committed crimes. The ants her to a man who rapes
(14:01):
dozens of women probably is not make him apologize, it's
make him go to jail pay for his crimes. Yeah,
and again she says she didn't know about the rape
or the assault. Um, maybe that's true. Uh, maybe they
offered her a lot of money. Maybe I'm certain they
offered her a lot of money. Based on my understanding
of her, she seemed like she was she she knew
(14:22):
what she was doing. And then this happens, and it's like,
I don't understand It's it's either a lot of money.
Some of it may have been. You know, Harvey was
a big progressive donor, you know, big donor to thee
we get into the Clintons a little bit, big donor
to a lot of good causes. Uh, and maybe she
thought he deserved a second chance or something. It felt
(14:43):
like she would know better that this kind of person
is not someone you can just make apologize and all
these women who have been harmed by him can just
snap back like, well he said sorry, So now all
my PTSD from being sexually assaulted. We'll just walk right
out the door, and I'm fine, let's go get some coffee.
Like it's so much more than that. They're so much
more many. I'm about to lose my mind. Well, and
(15:03):
that quote from the l A Times from her makes
me think that she's full of ship because the way
she outlines that conversation with him sounds like a scene
in a movie with the music swells and I just
want to try to Yeah, and then it's like Pygmalion,
but with sexism. Um, Harvey, you gotta try give me
(15:24):
a break. Yeah. Um So. Lisa bloom Uh insists that
Harvey Weinstein dictated the entire apology that he sent out
after the New York Times article was released. It's my
personal conspiracy theory based on the things I've read about her,
that bloom either outline wrote his apology or heavily influenced
it with direct advice on what to say. I'm going
to read the apology and let me not believe you. Yeah, okay, okay,
(15:47):
Well then I'll go into a couple of lines from
the apology that makes me. First, it starts with them saying,
I came of age in the sixties and seventies when
all the rules of behavior in workplaces where different. That
was the culture. Then obviously one of her first things
was saying, he's a dinosaur is from a different era. Uh.
He apologizes uh in the apology to all anyone he
may have hurt, which is at the time it came out,
(16:07):
at the start of this me too thing, that was
not the standard for a man who had been accused
of this. It was like denied, denied, andy um, which
again makes me think that that this is because she
was big on no, you've got to apologize, you don't deny,
you hit it on, which is again good advice if
you're not a rapist, if you're just a guy who
fucked up um. But then Harvey says, over the last year,
(16:29):
I've asked Lisa Bloom to tutor me, and she's put
together a team of people I brought on therapists, and
I plan to take a leave of absence from my
company to deal with this issue head on, and then
he misquotes jay Z lyrics YadA YadA, YadA, and he
ends by saying that he's going to give the n
r A his full attention. So he goes through his
whole apology where he's saying, like, I've been trying to
do this for ten years. This is a wake up call.
(16:49):
I can't be more remorseful about the people I've hurt,
and I plan to do right by all of them.
And then he says, I'm going to need a place
to channel that anger. So I've decided that I'm going
to give the n r A my full attention. I
hope Wayne Lappy will enjoy his retirement party. I'm going
to do it at the same place I had my
bar Mitzvah. I'm making a movie about our president. Perhaps
we can make it a joint retirement party. One year ago,
I began organizing a five million dollar foundation to give
(17:12):
scholarships to women directors at USC. Well, this might seem coincidental.
It has been in the works for a year. It
will be named after my mom, and I won't disappoint her. Yeah. No,
it's it's like the sleaziest fucking thing in the world west, Um,
and I feel like her hands are all over that. Um.
You know, I feel like rarely are people like that
are allowed to actually put their own thoughts because they
(17:32):
can be such wild cards. Yeah, and and why would
you want to if you've just hired this woman whose
whole job is number one, she's got street cred as
someone who's represented a lot of women in these cases. Like,
I feel like it was either the money or the
prestige of getting to reform someone like Weinstein, that that
that got her in. But she definitely compromised. Her mother's
a famous uh rights her most glory already. Yes, it
(17:56):
wasn't her mom kind of like, yeah, her mom was
so thing along the lines of, if I have to
go into court against Weinstein and fight my daughter in court,
I'll be willing to do it something like that. Before
you spoke up, I said the word compromised about Lisa Bloom,
and I was going to use that as a lead
into our ads by saying you won't have to compromise
with these products and or services which were now advertising.
(18:20):
So that's what I did. We're back and we're talking
about Lisa Bloom and Harvey Weinstein. Uh, Like, I don't
wanna say that if if the women Lisa Boom was
talking to, we're saying all they wanted was an apology
in their specific cases. I'm not saying that they're wrong
(18:41):
or anything. But at the point at which she was
saying this, there were people who were out and vocal
about the stuff that Harvey had done, um, including Rose mcgawan,
I'm pretty sure, and those people were not happy with
just an apology. So I don't know, it seems a
little messed up to me. Maybe she just really thought
he was just a sexual harasser. I don't know. Uh,
(19:03):
it's probably worth noting that, Uh. I mean, there's a
couple of things that are worth noting here when we
talk about her culpability. First of all, is that she
left Weinstein's employ like immediately after everything broke, like like
a couple of days after. I think she was on
Good Morning America. I think forty eight hours after the
article dropped. She was out. Um, she distanced herself from
(19:27):
Weinstein once the rape allegations, you know, way in over
her head. Yeah, Like wait a second, Yeah, she said,
I was never aware there were allegations of sexual assault.
Should I have, based on my log experience as a
sexual harassment lawyer, assumed that it could have been a
lot worse than what I knew. Yes, I should have
assumed that that's on me. Um, So she acknowledged a
funk up. Mose McGowan did claim that before she was fired,
(19:51):
Lisa Bloom offered her money if she quote got on
the Harvey's changed bandwagon. Lisa has denied this. Another Lisa
Bloom client was Roy Rice, Amazon studio chief, and also
the recipient of his own sexual harassment allegations. Kim Masters,
the journalist who broke the price story, claims Lisa quote
spread rumors about her in order to kill a story.
(20:12):
Lisa has also denied this. For her part, Lisa Bloom
has admitted that representing Harvey was a huge mistake. She
hasn't said whether or not the fact that the Weinstein
Company was looking at turning her book about Trayvon Martin
into a TV show had anything to do with her
support for Harvey. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. That's
what's power and money is so it will make people
(20:34):
just lose their ability to just see right from wrong,
and and that that's really like the core of this
story because he was one of the very few people
in the world who could make anything a movie or
a TV show. If because if he really, if he
did snap his fingers and say, your books a TV
it's a TV show. He's got that kind of cache
he made. Fucking yeah. So I hope their Thanksgiving with
(20:54):
her mother was so awkward and just filled with silent
looks of disapproval towards her. And I hope that her
book about Trayvon Martin, well, I don't know, like it's
like I want to say, I hope it didn't do well,
but it's an important story. That's crazy. Is she another
one of those people who publicly champions women and women's
(21:16):
rights and all this stuff and then is privately like
just here for showing her reputation as a certain I
were dying? Is she making the calculation? The world's an
ugly place. You know, you gotta win when you can,
and everything is not going to be a victory. Uh.
This guy is a creep, But the Trayvon Martin story
(21:36):
is important, and if I work with him, I can
get my book made into a TV show and we'll
do more net good than the harm that I'll do
by helping this creep look like he's reformed. I don't know,
I don't know. I struggle with that so much because, yeah,
that story is important, but championing like this white male
who is has allegations against him that are just so
(21:59):
dark and fucked up. Again, this is me seeing it
through my own bias, But it's just too much like
I will never be able to understand people who could
do that. I mean, you know, give me five years,
maybe I make a certain amount of money and next
thing you know, I'm supporting Harvey Weinstein, who knows it's
a mess. The amounts five million dollars. Everyone who's worth
(22:22):
five million or more is a fan of his. Okay,
to me in a few years and see if I
have the money. Uh so, yeah, I'm comfortable throwing some
judgment Lisa Bloom's way. Um, and while we're talking about
famous people that we want to judge, it's time to
move on to my favorite candidate for a bastard of
this podcast, Ben Affleck. Now, in case you didn't know,
(22:45):
have you heard of Ben Affleck? This guy? Have I? Ah?
He is a man with a terrible back tattoo who
became rich and famous thanks to a movie called good
Will Hunting and now he is Batman. Good Will Hunting
was produced by Harvey Weinstein. I think Clerks as well.
He was in there, right yeah, Um, anyway, no, no,
he was just he's just a friend of Kevin Smith. Right,
(23:06):
but he wasn't in that. No, he was in They
did like Dogma or something together, Dogma, that's what it was. Yeah,
and he's definitely in Dogma, right, Yeah, he isn't, and
so is Damon anyway. Uh so, Ben Affleck. Five days
after the New York Times article dropped, Affleck released a
statement that he was angry over the allegations about Weinstein
and said quote, I find myself asking what I can
(23:27):
do to make sure this doesn't happen to others. He
took a lot of flak for being late to the
apology table because most of the people who had worked
closely with Weinstein had said something much faster. Um. I'm
not sure how to fairy think that that accusation is.
But Rose McGowan was very angry at him. She tweeted
this response after he sent out his statement at Ben Affleck,
(23:49):
God damn it. I told him to stop doing that.
You said that to my face the press conference I
was made to go to after the assault. You lie.
So for a little bit of backstory, her claim is
that Weinstein raped her in a I think it was
a jacuzzi. Uh, And immediately afterwards she had to go
do like a press junket thing, and Ben Affleck saw
her like shaking and traumatized like you'd be after a rape.
(24:12):
And I I was like, what's going on? And she told
him what had happened, and then he said, God damn it.
I told him to stop doing that, which is what
eating too much makes something so basic. That's a weird reaction,
but gosh, darn, I think it's been. Affleck was like, oh, traumatized.
I know I have to be angry, so all feint anger.
I'm Ben Affleck, human robots. Why don't you call the
(24:34):
police instead of just telling him call the someone just
reported a rape to you, Harvey, Please Harvey, not again. Um. So,
Weinstein's defense team jumped on this as an excuse to
discredit Rose McGowan. Uh. They published an email from Affleck
(24:54):
to Weinstein in early two and sixteen, before the accusations broke,
say I have no idea of anything wrong you do. Yeah,
that's exactly what it says. It's titled Rose McGowan, and
Ben Affleck says she never told me, nor did I
ever infer that she was attacked by anyone. Any accounts
to the contrary are false. I have no knowledge about
anything Rose did or claimed to have done. Accounts otherwiser lies.
(25:16):
This is what he said to Weinstein in a private
email that then Weinstein had released in order to try
to how I send private emails to just in case
someone needs to release it in the future. Uh So,
Affleck publicly says he supports and believes Rose McGowan. He's
against Weinstein on this. I don't think he's addressed that
email directly, but what this says to me is that
Affleck is like, it's just a gutless people pleaser um.
(25:39):
He sees her traumatized, and so he does what he
thinks she'll appreciate. In the moment, Harvey asks him if
she said anything, and he denies it. Now that the
issues public, he's gonna take Rose aside because he knows
which way is the wind's blowing. But he's basically a
coward um. Like that's that's Ben Affleck in a nutshell.
I'm feeling. Um yeah, and I think it's starting to
weare on him because now he just looks crazy in
any photo, like he's been rinking and he always looks
(26:01):
like he just stopped crying. And the back tat you've
seen the backdown. It's falcon. It is an abomination. It's
it's garbage, is what it is. It looks like it
looks like the eagle on the Mexican flag had a
baby with like a bad watercolor painting of Snoopy and
(26:25):
or a phoenix. It's it's just bad, it's stupid. I'm
bad at describing tattoos as well, which is my other podcast,
Robert Evans describes tattoos poorly. Um, but we'll have a
picture of his terrible back tattoo. Um oh yeah. And
since the whole meto Dan Broke, Ben Affleck has been
accused of groping and harassment by several women. There's a
box article we'll throw up on the side that gives
(26:46):
a good breakdown number of bits on video you can
actually like see the Hillary. It's amazing. What a fucking
creepy is Um. He's apologized for that, and he seems
to be hoping his side of things blows over. Uh yeah, yeah, Um,
I don't know. This is the point, Like, again, we're
(27:07):
already very late into this. We've talked about a lot
of people. I've done a lot of research. I don't
really know where to stop when it comes to bring
it people who might have been complicit. They're like the
clear cases, the honey pots, the lawyers, the spies, the
journalists that he had working with him. I have one
question for you. Yeah, do you think because Meryl Streep
(27:27):
came out and said I had no idea, do you
think she had any sense of it? She's the one
I never could figure out. I could see it being
possible because she was has been such a huge star
the entire time Mabbie Weinstein has been worth talking about.
Um that maybe she was protected. Maybe Number one, he
was like because he usually went with people to start
of their career or kind of early on, that he
(27:50):
that he had some because nobody's got leverage over Meryl Streep.
So I could definitely see he never was creepy to her,
because that would have been suicide. That's the thing. I
feel like she was out of powerful enough bubble that
they were almost protecting her from such knowledge. And I
think that's possible because it also I doubt anyone would
have needed to warn her about him because she's sucking
Meryl Streep. She's not going to wind up in that situation. Um,
(28:13):
she's just too famous and rich. That said, UM, it
does seem like almost everybody who was famous and in
movies pretty much knew what Harvey Weinstein was, and I'd
be kind of surprised if she'd never heard anything. Was
she ever involved in any of the movies he produced?
I mean, Mirror Max made a shipload of stuff, So
I'm sure at some point they had crossed the paths
(28:33):
because yeah, she's in a lot of stuff. Yeah, I
don't know, like that's Mama Mia, But that just feels
like like a mirror Max Weinstein situation. I didn't find
any clear evidence of her being, you know, a complicit
in any of this. I didn't find any clear evidence
of his wife being complicit Georgina, and she said that
(28:54):
she didn't even know he was cheating on her. And
it's not impossible like they spent a lot of time
up art. Harvey was always in hotels, and it's always
in hotels and stuff. And in private apartments that he
had his assistants keep for him, Like he had private
bang apartments and stuff. Um, yeah, as assistants would keep
them stocked with lingerie and one notot. So it's possible
she didn't. Yeah. I mean, he also seems like he
(29:16):
could be like an annoying husband, So I'm sure she
was fine with him, Like, yeah, I wouldn't want to
be around, Um it was. I don't. Again, It's it's
kind of tough where to draw the line at, like
people to stop searching for complicity, And I think Hillary
Clinton might wind up on the list. If we have
a wide enough definition of an annoying I would agree
with that. Yeah. Yeah. Weinstein donated her and her husband
(29:39):
huge amounts of money over the years. He invited Hillary
to movie premiers. He helped advisor Senate campaign in two thousands.
Back in during the election, Lena Dunham warned the Clinton
campaign that Harvey was quote a rapist. UH magazine editor
Tina Brown also warned members of the campaign about Weinstein.
No actions were taken by anyone in the Clinton camp
to distance themselves from Weinstein. Several days after losing the
(29:59):
elect and the Clinton's had dinner with Harvey. They were
planning a new TV documentary about her campaign. The talks
only stopped after the New York Times article dropped. See
that's the thing is Hillary feels like a woman of convenience.
And if it does not directly affect her and the
cloud isn't over his head yet, what does that mean
to her? Yeah, she's not affected by any of these people.
(30:20):
He's not going to hurt her. Yeah, yeah, I would
say that's probably fair. But the Weinstein story is so
gross that even a lot of the guys who like
when you read through the New York articles and stuff,
there's a couple of people from within the Weinstein company
who seemed like good guys um at least on on
first blush. Ivan Writer is one of them. He was
(30:41):
a senior executive with the Weinstein Company. He should have
been running Farrell, running Pharaoh's articles a lot um he was.
He worked with Harvey for decades and when he learned
that Lisa Evans from our last podcast had been harassed
by Weinstein, he reached out to her and he basically
told her that I fought with him about the mistreatment
of woman for three weeks before the incident with you.
(31:01):
I even wrote him an email that got me labeled
by him a sex police. The fight I had with
him about you was epic. I told him if you
were my daughter, he would not have made out so well. Um,
and this is not someone who alleges Harvey raped her,
by the way. This is so. Writer definitely opposed Weinstein
from within the company. He refused to speak favorably of
him to reporters, even when Harvey threatened to dig up
(31:21):
dirt on him. He seems like one of the few
good guys in this situation, but it's also worth noting
that he only really started fighting back in two thousand fourteen,
and his objections to Harvey were on financial grounds. Basically,
he found out that Weinstein had been using his company
credit card to pay to tip yacht staff, private jet
flights to Europe to like fly models around and stuff
(31:43):
for basically things to do with his affairs. He was
using the company as a separate exactly, And that's when
Ivan Writer really really start to care when money was involved. Yeah,
here's how the New York Times put it. Concerned that
his boss's activities were quote going to take the company down.
Mr Writer and other executives decided they should act. Wow,
So it was mostly self interest, mostly self interest. So again,
(32:06):
everyone in this story only does anything good or evil
in fairness when their career is And I also don't
like that line if you were my daughter, It's like, yeah,
who cares who she's Yeah, like this is a human being, yeah,
which is again like I don't want to like yell
at him for being the one person who actually spoke
(32:27):
to one of his victims and was like, this is
fucked up because no one else did, so he gets
some credit, but like, good is a low bar in
the Harvey Weinstein story. It's like you still didn't call
the police, Like you didn't say anything to anyone else? Really, yeah,
it is. It is a very low bar. Another possible
hero in this is a woman named Donna Gigliotti. Helped
(32:49):
one of Harvey's victims seek legal counsel and advised her
and how to get a good settlement out of him,
because he settled with like a dozen women over the years,
which again people knew about this stuff. There were accusations
he just was able to pay it off for a
long time. Um, And Donna Gigliotti is one of the
women who knew about this because she helped one of
these victims. But in two thousand ten, when Harvey offered
her a job as president of production at the Weinstein Company,
(33:11):
she took it. Yeah's got a price. It's so crazy.
Everybody's got a price, and everyone is willing to do
pretty much whatever it takes to keep their career rolling along,
which I guess you could call Hollywood in a nutshell,
even though I don't want to believe that because I
fucking work here too. Scared me, Like, who am I
going to become? Yeah? Yeah, well you just wait till
(33:32):
you hit that five million dollar mark again. It's hard
not to read all of this and to come to
the conclusion that there was just way too much money
at stake for the people involved to not be gross. Um.
Staying blind to Harvey's crimes or just enabling him meant
tens of millions of dollars. It seems almost nobody is
capable of turning that down. Uh. In October of two seventeen,
Scott Rosenberg, screenwriter of Beautiful Girls, posted his thoughts about
(33:55):
Harvey Weinstein on Facebook. Scott wrote from Miramax in the
early nineties. He credit Weinstein with helping himsell his first
two movies. He was there for many of the biggest
years of Weinstein's career when he in Tarantino and Affleck,
we're all watching their careers explode into the stratosphere. So
I'm going to read a selection from the post that
he wrote. It was glorious, all of it. So what
if he was coming on a little strong to some
(34:16):
young models who had moved mountains to get into one
of his parties. So what if he was exposing himself
and five star hotel rooms like a cartoon flasher out
of Mad magazine. Just swap robe for raincoat? Who are
we to call foul? Golden geese don't come along too
often in one's life, which goes back to my original point.
Everybody fucking new, but everybody was just having too good
a time and doing remarkable work, making remarkable movies. As
(34:39):
the old joke goes, we needed the eggs. Okay, maybe
we didn't need them, but we really, really, really really
liked them eggs. So we were willing to overlook what
the golden goose was up to in the murky shadows
behind the barn. And for that I am eternally sorry
all the women who that had to suffer this. I
am eternally sorry. I've worked with Mira and Rosanna and Lysette,
I've known Os and Ashley and Claire for years. Their
(35:01):
courage only hangs a lantern on my shame, and I
am eternally sorry to all those who suffered in silence
all this time and have chosen to remain silent today.
So Scott's opinion seems to be that he's a bastard
and so has been afflecked. So is Clinton Tarantino and
probably the Clinton's too. I'm gonna guess Scott would classify
everybody we've talked about today, the honeypots, the assistants, the lawyers,
(35:21):
the journalists, the spies, is the same kind of complicit
because when it comes right down to it, the ex
massad agents are guilty of the same basic crime has
been afflecked. They could live with the knowledge that an
old creep was molesting young women as long as the
money was good enough. Boy. Yeah, that's a happy ending
for our podcast today. Well how you feeling, Ana, I
(35:44):
feel lost. I feel confused. I did always say that
if if I would ever hire a bodyguard, it would
be a massad agent because I knew they would do
whatever they could to protect me. Well yeah, I mean,
if you're gonna hire someone to dig up dirt, it
seems like black cubes good at it, although they didn't
stop that article from dropping. Well, that's the thing is
(36:05):
like the power of the people is so important, and
I think that's that was so key in bringing down Weinstein.
Like all of this like everyone knew and I for
a second when you were reading that, I like almost understood,
and there was like a moment of my like psyche orles,
like whoa, what am I doing? Like when you're at
that level and you're having fun, you're like, yeah, Harvey
(36:27):
is fucking crazy, you know, and then you're just doing
your thing because you're in this world. But it's impossible
to take yourself out of that bubble and be like,
wait a second, that's harassment. Actually you can't see past
it because you're like everyone's having a damn good times
and you're all making so much money. Yeah yeah, and
that is so fucking heavy. I can't. Yeah. Well, and
(36:50):
it's I promised not to turn any more of these
into like you know, anti capitalist RNSW or whatever, but
it is impossible to deny that. Yeah, it's not just
that he had the ability to make people's careers. He
had the ability to with anybody he helped out end
there financial woes forever. Like, it's whatever you're worried about,
(37:12):
whatever you're scared about, whatever your anxiety is. You get
a kid at home who's sick, you have to pay
for your kid to go to college. You know, you've
got you know, a mortgage payment, do or whatever. Harvey
can make that go away forever, and all you have
to do is be okay with him being a creeper. Yeah.
And I think most of us sitting down and reading
(37:34):
Ronan Pharaoh's articles, most of us condemning Harvey Weinstein, most
of us condemning all these people. I think most people,
if they were in the situation a lot of these
folks were if they didn't know exactly what had gone on.
They weren't sure that it was rape. They just knew
that it was fucked up and there was a lot
of money on the line. I think most people help
keep the secret. Yeah, that's my dark theory. Yeah, I
(37:59):
think if I were to look back, maybe I would too.
I don't know. I certainly probably if there was enough
pressure on me, I would crumble. I mean, I feel
like I'm an anxious enough person that literally what I
would do probably would keep the secret but then move
away and just try and put it behind me. Even
(38:21):
if if I was an assistant and I was put
in that position and I was asked to do that,
I probably wouldn't do it. But I also probably wouldn't
have said anything. That's that's what breaks my own I
just and I feel like, you know, I feel like
I might be the screenwriter in this who was willing
to cash the check and ignore the creep, and who
(38:43):
when it all came out, posted a very eloquent article
apologizing but still made that money, still stack, that paper
still benefited. Yeah, it's easy to apologize now after all
these years. Yeah, which is again it's a very eloquent
apology and better than any of the other apologies. So
he gets some at it for that um and credit
for acknowledging that everybody was garbage in this situation. But
(39:05):
I do think that going back to my original question
at the top of this podcast, who are all of
the bastards in the Harvey Weinstein story? Well, it's like
he said, it's every fucking body. Yeah, oh Anna, you
wanna plug some stuff. You guys, just be good people.
It's like, don't hurt anybody. For the love of God,
don't hurt anybody. Don't use your power against vulnerable people.
(39:29):
Just because someone works below you does not mean they
owe you anything. No one knows you anything, nothing belongs
to you. You sit there and keep your head down,
work hard, and don't let anyone take advantage of you.
And if you ever need to stand up against someone
who is powerful, Oh God be with you. I don't
even know. I don't even know if I believe in God,
but Jesus Christ, I hope, I hope you make it
(39:49):
out because this industry is so aggressive when it comes
to just the big dogs taken down the little dogs.
I don't even and know. It's crazy to think that
I work in this industry and I don't know what
I would do. Well, Yeah, we're we're talking about a
lot of this stuff, and it's probably the crimesy committed
(40:12):
happened within ten miles of where we're sitting right now. Yeah. Yeah,
we're in Hollywood right or in Florida. Yeah, that's that's heartbreaking.
It's actually one of the places that he would go
to the Peninsula Hotel. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
place I when a few jobs ago. I would go
there a lot for work. And I think when I
(40:33):
started reading that and I start I just like started
to make that connection, and I was like, oh no,
I really hope I was never in that hotel around
the same time, because that is horrifying to think about.
Oh God, and how I find to think about what
the wait staff at the Peninsula Hotel and the Tribeca
Grand must have had to clean up. Oh yeah, and
that whole like he's back all right, Well I can't really.
(40:56):
I mean, I'm sure the gossip was there, but like
you can't do anything and that that's heartbreaking. Yeah yeah,
it is. Uh all right, well, um, this has been
Behind the Bastards. Check back next week when we'll talk
about something that's more fun but still a terrible person.
I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on Twitter at
(41:17):
I Write Okay two letters, and you can find this
podcast on Twitter at Bastard's pot If you can find
us on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com,
will be putting up a selection of Harvey Weinstein looking
just like the creepiest egg that ever fell out of
a basket, and also pictures of him with Ben Affleck
and Ben Affleck's terrible back tattoo. Ben Affleck's catching a
(41:38):
lot of flak this podcast, but I feel like that's fine. Yeah,
he made his bed and now he has to rub
his terrible tattoo on him. All right until next week.
I'm Robert Evans. Have a bastardless day.
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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