@MissEliza
HW got away with his abuse for so long because he was able to silence his victims, either through threats/intimidation, career curtailment or legal settlements.
As such, whilst rumours of his behaviour were widely known, “proving” what he had done was incredibly difficult. Women who had signed legal agreements were not just actresses, but company employees etc some of whom had since left the industry.
How exactly did the NYT track these women down? How did they know about the settlements?
It’s not exactly a massive leap to suggest they may have been leaked by the only people who would have categorically known about them - Executives at MiraMax and latterly the Weinstien Company.
There are rumours circling that his brother allegedly may have been instrumental in this. A number of reasons have been suggested - it gave him leverage to take over the company, he was fed up at the cost of the settlements, he felt it was only a matter of time before HW was exposed - so better to be done on their terms/timing, their mother had just died so any reason to standby HW had now now disappeared.
Thing is - there’s one big thing that’s missing from that list isn’t there? Note that no-one is suggesting (if indeed TWC execs and his brother threw him under the bus) that they did it to protect future victims of HW’s abuse or to assist former victims in finally getting justice.....