Harvey Weinstein

[caperberries]

Rumours have been circulating about this disgusting man and his sleazy casting couch for years... He has offered a half-hearted apology, but seems rather smug about the fact that his family are supporting him.

AIBU to think his wife is misguided? What sort of example is she setting to her daughter? After all, this isn't a one-off - it is a pattern of serious abuse of women over decades.

www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html

In a way I'm pleased he hadn't yet apologised. It would mean absolutely nothing really as it's very clear he feels he hasn't done anything wrong. He's made a "mistake" and "deserves a second chance" in his own opinion.
And Oliver Stone can Fuck right off with his statement. It's on record that women have complained about HWs behaviour for decades. Decent people don't need a trial to know he's a sex offender.

Listened to what Emma Thompson had to say on the matter and totally agree he is a sexual predator but he is from Hollywood and they like to spin a story we shall hear his sob stories in the next few months how he struggled with his demons blah blah as this makes him sound all that bit more interesting and I wouldn't be surprised if in five years time he is back in the business

But he won't hold the same power but still he will be forgiven by some and he has certainly propelled many with their careers and they have already shown their loyalty by claiming they knew nothing which is utter rubbish

I heard Jane Fonda interviewed and she says she did hear about him and she should have spoken up it isn't for her to she herself has been a victim how can you speak out when someone is so powerful when you know you will be totally crushed but those around him who are powerful are guilty in covering up for him they allowed this to go on for so long

It seems to be women who are feeling guilty for not speaking out yet the men making some crap statements of not knowing or these are the men I fear around my daughters and the anger they feel is all Hollywood bullshit

It doesnt matter how rich and famous a woman is. Nobody is obliged to put herself through the trauma of reporting a sexual assault. She is not resonsible for any assaults that come after. The man is. The people that should have reported it are the ones who set the meetings up and paid off the women.

Absolutely

Emma thompson is so articulate. I think that's a pretty powerful interview.

I've just read Kate Beckinsales account with HW and it is really upsetting. She was just 17 when she was told to meet HW in his hotel room by reception (she thought the meeting would be in a conference room) when she arrived he was dressed in his bathrobe. He attempted to get her drunk, by offering her alcohol which she refused. She made an excuse of having to go to school in the morning. Since then she has refused to ever work for Miramax which has harmed her career. HW could not remember ever sexually harassing her and called her a cunt and other names because of her refusals.

I always wondered why KB hasn't been bigger in hollywood. It seemed like she should have been at least as big as Kate Winslet or Kiera Knightly et al among the british actresses.

What's sad, is she says her stand refusing to sign up to Miramax made her unpopular and garnered little sympathy from anyone other than her family and friends.

And the account from Myleene Klass is horrendous also. She was asked to sign an NDA before she even had started her main course. Fortunately she was older and wiser, and while she spoke about it publicly at the time, she was too scared to name him.

fwiw my thoughts on the two-pronged issue of 1) why didn't women speak up and 2) surely everybody knew.

I only twigged, about 5 years ago, that an incident that happened to me in my late teens was actually an assault.

At a party (I was very very drunk) a 'friend' of mine suddenly led me upstairs, locked the batheroom door and, without a word to ask or even warn me what he was going to do, sat down on the edge of the bath, pulled his trousers down, forced my head down and pushed it up and down until he ejaculated in my mouth. I was so naive, I literally had no idea what this actually 'was' and :( was so surprised when he actually came in my mouth that (sorry for TMI) I swallowed it :( I really had no idea what the hell it all was, what it was about. I was a very sheltered 18 year old. He then opened the door, let me out and started boasting to his friend (who'd been waiting outside) about it.

Seriously, it took me years to actually work out that this was an assault. Until then, I thought I'd given him a blow job.

I was aware I hadn't said I wanted to, I was aware I hadn't consented to it, I was aware that I'd been so drunk I could hardly walk up the stairs.

But I just sort of thought, 'Oh, I assume he must have known, somehow, that I wanted to do that.'

IT. IS. CRAZY.

Your mind, I think, plays bizarre tricks on you, just because it's such a weird experience that it tries to make some sort of ordered sense of it.

So these women that HW inveigled up to his hotel room are already stifling themselves, before they've even started, because their addled brains are going, 'OK, hang on, I did go up there... maybe that implied I was agreeing to that... maybe these are the rules and i just don't know them... the assistant who let me in seemed to think it was lal perfectly normal... and HW seemed to think - indeed told me - this is all perfectly normal... so I guess it's NOT assault/harrassment, it's just A Thing That Happens... oh, ok then...'

PLus, in my case, the horrible 'friend' of mine had a girlfriend, someone I was alos friendly with. So even if i HAD realised he had forced me to perform oral sex on him instead of me consenting, I would never have said a word to anyone. In fact for months afterwards I felt incredibly guilty about the fact I had 'betrayed' my friend by giving her boyfriend a blow job. I firmly believe, now, that the boy/young man that did this to me knew he would never face consequences, even if he knew it was wrong, because I would never upset my friend, his girlfriend, over it.

It is highly possible that, as well as the 'Did I consent, somehow?' issue above, the women in question felt silenced because they just didn't want to rock the boat in their or in HW's personal lives. Maybe they had boyfriends that wouldn't believe them and accuse them of trying to cheat. Maybe they felt bad for HW's wife, who in some cases they may have known, and just rather stayed silent. A myriad of reasons, all highly individual. Just because they're, in some cases, big stars, I can see why they might have confused feelings and just stay quiet.

The second point, about why didn't anyone openly accuse HW?

I should say I am very very very unimpressed by the likes of Matt Damon, Ben Affleck (ugh), GC etc, so am not in any way trying to excuse them. I am astonished if they claim they barely knew any of this. They were inner circle.

However, for the likes of Emma Thompson, lesser stars, people less close to Miramax/TWC. I can also see how it's believeable they didn't know the extent of this.

Again, using my case as an example. My group of friends would never have suspected that my 'friend' forced me to perform oral sex on him that night. If he had penetrated me without my consent, they wouldnt' have suspected that either. They would be shocked, now, if I called them up and said, 'Hey, 20 years ago, at a party, this is what happened to me...'

HOWEVER, they did all know he was a 'bad' boy. They knew he cheated, repeatedly, on his girlfriend. They knew, later in his life, that he used prostitutes. They knew he was a 'womaniser'. They knew he had a propensity to wandering hands.

They probably thought most women knew this too and that anyone fondled by him, occasionally, would give him a sharp rebuke for wandering hands and then just go about their days, not caring.

Anyway, this is just my way of trying to put a human face on all of this insane Hollywood stuff. I can truly believe that people can have know HW was a pig without knowing he was also a rapist and abuser. Not ALL people, but plenty.

Feel like a need a shower now tbh :(

Wish I could go back and tell an 18 year old me she didn't need to feel so bad about that experience and that just because she was drunk it wasn't in fact her fault.

What other actresses have worked for HW?

Sorry, to be clear in my (epic) post, when I said, 'Oh, I assume he must have known, somehow, that I wanted to do it' I obviously don't mean that I did want to do it. I mean that he must have THOUGHT he knew that I wanted to do it, from some signal I'd unknowingly given.

I didn't want to do it!!!!

Jessi - that is hideous - I am so sorry. He is a predator and he targeted you. But the mind-games it leaves you with is paralysing and crushing for decades.

Another victim explains it clearly and how she spoke out and no one wanted to "hear" her.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/12/harvey-weinstein-alleged-assault-sophie-dix-english-actor-ruined-career

Jessi - would you consider reporting now? He might well have a string of accusations against him already.

So sorry you went through that Jessie. You don't have to justify whether you wanted to go up with him or not to me or anyone. You didn't want it. End of. Sexual assault and harassment is pretty endemic in society it seems. It's bloody shit.

Thanks another. It does look a bit grim, when I write it down.

I was also reminded of it when looking at the pics of eg Gwyneth Paltrow smiling next to HW at awards ceremonies and parties etc, and the general question of, 'How could anyone have that pic taken, knowing what he was like, if they were still socialising with the man it oculdn't have actually happened to them, not really.'

I remained in a friendship group with the person I described above for YEARS after this happened. I would never have got drunk and alone with him again, that was for sure, but we all hung out as friends, I even used to have long talks with him about life and stuff We attended friends' weddings, 21st parties etc... I'm sure there are many, many photos of he and I standing with our arms around each other, smiling pleasantly.

And - even more of a mind-fuck to me these days - as I say we were still kind-of 'friends' for a long time after this (I get that he wasn't much of a friend to me!!) because in my mind, this was a silly mistake I had made and was just glad it hadn't all come out and ruined my friendship with his gf.

Madness.

I think its great ET is speaking out about it and in such strong terms but its a shame she didnt take up this cause earlier.

Now the tide has turned its going to be the fashionable thing to do - pile up against HW. Like the models against FUR ...a couple of years later they are all wearing it again.

Jessi I totally get it.

Very interesting question another. Would I consider reporting it now?

No :(

That makes me feel shit. But no, I wouldn't. Because I just think, apart from nice people on MN, surely nobody else would think what he did was that bad? (don't get me wrong. I know, now, that it was bad. But it took me almost 2 decades, having a DD of my own, and a lot of education to come to that opinion. And still, deep down, I do think it was kind of my own fault, or at least that I was partially responsible.)

If a string of women suddenly came out and said it had happened to them too, or worse, I would feel appalling. I would add my voice, just to let them know they were supported. But I would feel shit about doing so, because I would feel responsible, especially if far worse happened to them.

Thank Hadron, that's really nice of you to say. I think there's a lot of weird things at work in our minds as women. For example, on this occaison, not only was I drunk but I had taken care to get dressed up in a sexy way (I was 18 and had a nice body back then!!), I wanted to look attractive and enticing and I wanted to flirt with boys.

I want my DD to learn, somehow, that she can do all of those things but she should still never end up locked in a bathroom with a boy pushing her head up and down on him.

I didn't know that.

I am sure I am not the only one who has worked with men in senior positions that we were wary of and told by others he was a bit of a creep really the correct word is predator

But it's been played down forever in every society

www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeednews/whos-the-harvey-weinstein-of-your-industry?utm_term=.enM8PaJVQe#.ykwvzQ3daG
Who Are The Harvey Weinsteins Of Your Industry? Tell Us.
BuzzFeed News is committed to investigating incidences of assault, harassment, and abuse of power — but we need your help.

Sorry to go on but it's also just occurred to me - amazingly - I've never even told DH this!!

We got together about a year after that happened and in all those years I've never told him. Don't think I ever will.

I just don't want him to know that ever happened to me. It feels very shameful.

No friends know, either.

It really makes sense to me in a profound way how a lot of HW's victims, and victims of other revolting men like him, just don't say a word.

I really worry about some of the misinformation on here. HW will use the best lawyers he can but there are some shit hot prosecutors around.
A complaint has been made in the UK so if he's extradited he'll be prosecuted in the usual way with the CPS no doubt using the best and brightest barrister around.

Jessi - is this the first time that you have spoken about it? Have you ever spoken about it in RL to anyone? You should not be feeling shame - it is still inside and corroding you - maybe a rape crisis charity or experienced counsellor could help you. This HW news must be very triggering of your trauma and "shame". But I am sure it has not been the first trigger and will not be the last trigger.

Perhaps this statement by Kate B sheds some light (not to excuse those in the inner circle) on why some male actors/other men or just people assistants, etc, in the know would not have risked saying anything:

"I had a male friend who, based on my experience,warned a young actress who said she was going to dinner with Harvey to be careful. He received a phone call the next day saying he would never work in another Miramax film; the girl was already sleeping with Harvey and had told him that my friend had warned her off.Let's stop allowing our young women to be sexual cannon fodder,s"

So it seems even male bystanders would have risked their careers being potentially ended by speaking up. If you tried to warn someone you had no idea whether they were already shagging a sexually exploitive director and/or whether your attempts to intervene would get back to them. Those able to warn would have been people outside the circle like AJ who had already made the choice never to work with miramax.

We need to be aware that there are opportunist predators everywhere.

Just read this horror...

www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/manhunt-as-teenage-girl-suffers-three-horrific-sex-attacks-in-one-hour-after-night-out-in-east-a3657576.html

I've just read the kate beckinsale statement butbut was accompanied by a recent photo of her smooching up to him, in confused as one minute she's saying she never went near him again