Harvey Weinstein: The fall of the king of Hollywood

Harvey Weinstein was the king of Hollywood a mogul with 81 Oscars to his league the Harvey I knew was brilliant I mean truly brilliant and he ran this town he was the guy but we'll show you what actually happened behind his locked office door the game was about power it was about making a picture late making you give in forcing a seduction on you and speak to those who say they paid an awful price for being in Weinstein's world you ruined lives he crushed dreams I still am scared of him he is a master predator now Hollywood's dirty secret is out in the open we knew everybody knew everybody now I'm The Reckoning isn't over it's important for other men to know you want to act this way then you're gonna lose everything mr. Weinstein hi Thomas Peter from Sky News I wonder if you tell me do you believe all of those women are lying do you believe they're lying sir thank you very much are you ashamed any messages for the women Harvey Weinstein has refused all of our requests for an interview so we tracked him down on the street he still wouldn't talk but the women who say he altered their lives forever will [Music] to try and understand what happened we listen to stories like Rose McGowan who was one of the first celebrities to accuse him of sexual assault it was 1997 and she was at the Sundance Film Festival already a star in the making Weinstein invited her to his hotel room where she says he raped her skilled predators take a lion they look for the weakest one in the pack don't they the one without the protection because there are actresses he didn't target because they had better representation for better people around them or there's something they didn't have that crack maybe but she targeted an awful lot and like a super predator you know with night-vision goggles on he saw what he needed to see and he did what he needs to do his whole world was set out to rape to consume to eat people's lives he's a dastardly human I had heard of the casting couch I thought maybe that was like a rite of passage and I felt like if this is how other people make it like it's really depressing and against everything that I believe in but when you're in a more vulnerable position you really don't have a choice is what I felt happened that he kind of made it seem like this was the only way that he would and it's the only way that he would ever do it for anyone else I felt like I said no and he didn't even acknowledge it I felt like I had to do it so how is he about it he was calm and collected this was his like MO he had a system to bring lure them up ask for the massage come out in the town robe he was just active like it was normal give Weinstein what he wanted or forfeit a dream that's the choice dawn Dunning say she had to make - she's a costume designer now but back in 2003 she was a young actress looking for her big break she met one Steen while she was working in a nightclub and he said he could help after several screen tests she went to what she thought was a business meeting in a hotel suite when I got there he opened the door and he was in an open robe on the coffee table he had three small stacks of paper and he said these are contracts for my next three films I will sign them today but I want you to have a threesome with me and my assistant I laughed I thought he was joking and when I started laughing he got angry and that's when I got scared he started yelling at me and he said you'll never make it in this business this is how this industry works this is how he named three actresses how they got to where they are he went on and then at that point I the door was pretty close behind me and I just turned and went for the door I could still hear him yelling the more powerful he got the more blatant the alleged behavior it was an open secret in Hollywood but even those who exercised caution say they were targets like louisette guys who was invited to pitch a script at the Sundance festival he said well why don't we reconvene in my office well they turn hotel rooms into offices when you're at these festivals that's just the norm but I still felt a little hesitant obviously I knew that this was a huge opportunity and I didn't want to give that opportunity up at at the same time I looked at him in the eye and I said there's a camera right there so I'll go up to your office and meet with you but you're not allowed to touch me and I said you have to shake my hand inside the room do we set says things changed he pulled me to his bathroom and we both stood in front of the mirror and he's like just watch me he wanted me to watch him masturbate and finally I just ripped my arm away and he followed me out of the room saying you know look I can give you a three-picture deal I can greenlight your film like this is ridiculous this is all you have to do everybody does it you know there's lots of other women who have done this personally I think he enjoyed the switch which is then he comes out he's naked it's a whole different tone it's the Energy's different it's much more aggressive and angry and and he watches us you know like almost like the prey like okay now what are you gonna do I think he loved the power struggle I think he loved to watch in our faces the fear that's what I truly believe Weinstein apparently cast his net wide Lawrence even was a young reporter when she met him at a dinner party in a restaurant he part-owned he offered her a tour of the kitchen and she followed him I realized that this was a bad situation and I said I'm gonna go back upstairs I you know I saw the kitchen I'm good he leaned in to kiss me and I said I'm so sorry if I if I gave you the wrong impression but I'm not I'm not interested I'm dating someone you know I'm gonna go back upstairs and and and at that point he got kind of irritated and he asked me just just down there and be quiet and I I was a little shocked to hear that cuz his tone changed dramatically but he blocked my exit and I thought to myself what is he gonna do and that's when he just started masturbating in front of me and I just stood there kind of frozen I was 27 28 when I had this encounter with him and I just remember feeling stupid feeling really dumb standing there and watching this man you know do what he was doing and thinking to myself how could I be so dumb how could I think that he was really interested in me and what I had to say about news and history and world politics he had a plan he knew exactly where how to get me down there and just the the callousness of it like just stand there and be quiet then because this is gonna happen whether you participate or not that was that struck me as something that he's done before Sarah Anne mass went to Weinstein's home to be interviewed for a job as his children's nanny there she says he assaulted her I had sort of been warned by his assistants ahead of time that you know he was you know he's a Hollywood guy you know they're kind of different but never I never translated that to mean that he was going to you know sexually assault me during the whole incident it was just a shock and fear and discomfort because it you know you're in a professional environment it's certainly not something you're expecting and he also had a huge anger outburst his children it was just like a very terrifying experience for me and I remember really distinctly driving there I'm the road I took and the exit and everything and then I don't remember getting home that constantly felt trapped he cornered me over over again every woman we talked to described the same feeling of being caught in Weinstein's web entrepreneur Melissa Thompson says he raped her after a business meeting I never had choice like it's Harvey's choice and it's like Harvey is a playing cards with a stock deck the outcomes are fixed the women lose I felt like who would care that if I said anything there is still a profound sense of loss over what might have been Louie's God bald was a young woman when she had her own experience with Weinstein now she's a trauma specialist a choice shaped by what happened to her many of us are mourning the careers that we can pan I think that's the number one thing that's being warned there are very many women who are saying that their careers could have been so much more illustrious had Harvey not said about destroying them when you have someone who is the most powerful man in Hollywood telling you this is how it works I believe them you know that you know was coming from the horse's mouth I was like okay this is you know not gonna work for me because I'm not willing I mean to go that far for it you know when you're kind of almost hunted and treated like a piece of meat that does something to you there's no woman at any stage of her life should be told that you have to do a sexual act in order to have a career I'm sorry but it's pretty basic Harvey Weinstein has always maintained that any sexual encounters were consensual but his accusers say he preyed on vulnerable young women unchecked for nearly three decades they want to know how and why it continued for so long there are lots of reasons why no one stood up to Harvey Weinstein one of them is that well before he was famous he was known as a bully in the summer of 1980 Paul or Cho v AK worked for Weinstein on his first film it was a horror called the burning Paula was to become one of the earliest alleged victims of Weinstein's inappropriate behavior I didn't realize how absurd I was until I got outside the door and I kind of started shaking and I broke down and started crying later on set Paula says Weinstein tracked her down to gloat about exposing himself he walked up behind me and said so was it the high point of your internship to see me naked I just said no Harvey frankly you disgust me and he laughed anyone he had no other reason to be there except to torment me former employees say it only got worse from there Harvey and his brother Bob moved to New York City to run their film company Miramax they were cruel both of them hardly in particular but but bob was right there with him mark Lipsky was the head of marketing they couldn't help themselves every girl in the office cried I don't know what the expense budget was for flowers but lots of money was spent on you know next day apologies and begging forgiveness I think a lot of people who worked for them felt stuck why don't you think anybody stopped him it's a big scary guy the people surrounding both of them but Harvey in particular were completely dependent on him and on the company for their careers and there was scary guys but it wasn't just about fear Weinstein was a force of nature and people were drawn to him we all struggled trying to follow social norms around him and he unbuttered us all and he was a very charismatic confusing powerful frightening exciting fun too person to be around and you know he played with all those emotions with you all the time so you were always in a sort of state of slight confusion in survival with him he knew how humans were that's what made him such a great storyteller such a great producer the thing with abusive relationships is that people keep coming back to them or rationalizing the behavior that definitely happened the thing was that there was such it's almost unfair to talk about the bad behavior without talking about the bits of glamour and the excitement and working with all the creative people that yet that you were surrounded with the circles he ran in words were extraordinary okay you step into the room Madonna says this is John Paul Gautier and these these guys they're Depeche Mode there was something sort of very heady about the atmosphere so it was like the you would give up some of your own humility to stick in the job or to stay in the kind of life Harvey could be explosive he could be the way he would verbally attack people and that worked for him was was vicious it was really awful I mean he would reduce people to tears but it always seemed in service of what he wanted best for a particular film or a particular project so in a way in my mind I excused it I said well he's just that passionate about you know what he wants for this movie Michael a pasta Lina was head of creative affairs at Miramax in the late 80s and early 90s I guess there was enough that was so extraordinary and that you were learning so much and that you know you would work on something and in the next month it would be in theaters nationwide and there would be Oscar talk you know so the horrible part seemed not okay but I guess this is the price you know that you have to pay things moved at breakneck speed for Bob Weinstein's assistant Cathy de clases there was little time to think clearly about what might have been happening we were distributing what 1618 films a year it was insane what was going on there I remember working probably 80 90 hours a week consistently so you would see something out of the corner of your eye when you're running down a hallway like Harvey flirting with a new blonde receptionists out of the front and you're like okay so he's just being a weasel you know cheating on his wife but never did I ever think that there was more than that going on he was just being kind of lecherous you know in 1990 a serious incident revealed things were apparently much worse than that but still Weinstein remained untouchable a lawsuit was delivered to the office it was disseminated verbally about what the contents of this lawsuit were which was that he had attacked a sexually attacked or molested an intern and it all made sense because this this young woman she worked there for a while she was very very young very eager and one day just poof she vanished I opened this one envelope and from an attorney's office and this was a very different kind of a letter all I saw was red I was completely not only disgusted and furious everybody started talking about it and more started coming out another employee who I can't name pulled me aside at one point and said boy on this lawsuit on this one there he's really gonna have to pay a lot this time and I was like you know this time so we knew everybody knew everybody even with the allegation as common knowledge nothing happened to Harvey Weinstein Bob Weinstein says that he cannot recall the incident and has always insisted that he didn't know about the extent of his brother's alleged harassment and assault of women do you think that Bob knew what his brother might have been doing behind closed doors well he certainly knew when I handed in the letter that came from the law office Harvey got a letter Bob got a letter Bob knew of course he knew of course you know how do you not know he was involved in the settlement for his brother after an argument Kathy left I said you know what I quit and your brother is a pig people might listen to these stories and say you had a responsibility I do something I did I did and you didn't and I did I know that's a difficult question to answer I I want to fall back on I was in my early 20s and it was naivete but that's not really an excuse [Music] it's not that we didn't have a concept of sexual harassment but we just we didn't know what to do with it oh this is terrible but this is what I did it seemed shrugs awful you know I'm not going to do anything I swear my children please even those who didn't shrug it off were thwarted model Ambra battle on ado Terez went as far as wearing a wire for the NYPD after she reported that Weinstein groped her but the Manhattan district attorney's office said the tape wasn't enough to prove a crime and declined to press charges others were quietly discouraged from making a fuss I was told that even if I said anything that you know he's got a team of lawyers and you don't want to do that because they'll take me down and nobody's gonna believe you Weinstein's assistant Zelda Perkins tried to take him on in the courts after a colleague reported an attack she spoke up and was silenced he had done something really heinous and it was I felt it was partly my responsibility because I had left this girl with him to do her job and so it was my responsibility to make sure that this was stopped and that this couldn't happen again and I presumed that the law would back me up on that instead Weinstein's legal team swung into action and like others Zelda found herself signing a restrictive non-disclosure agreement it was made very clear to me right from the start from my own representation that I was on a losing ticket and the power disparity was was too large and who was gonna listen to us Harvey behaved the way he behaved because he could he could pay to shut everything down he had the power to tell everybody what to do he was above the law there have been many reports about what Harvey Weinstein did but now we can show you an example of how he behaved behind closed doors [Music] the world watched as Weinstein walked the red carpets little evidence of his alleged behavior beyond rumor and gossip Melissa Thompson changed that by trusting us to tell her story once she's kept secret for seven years hoping it would reveal Weinstein's almost masterful ability to abuse his power its September 2011 and 28 year old Melissa is in the weinstein company offices in New York City she's here to pitch her tech startup companies new video platform and as part of the demo she's recording the meeting she's expecting to see the marketing team but Weinstein arrives alone asked staff for privacy and locks the door [Music] melissa says that a few hours after this he raped her I was reading I was thinking okay he's hugging me what what do I do now I was sensing I have to be a little bit more vigilant to this situation than I originally thought it is so painful to watch back for multiple reasons because I look at myself and I had no idea what was going on Melissa and Weinstein have met briefly once before but this is their first formal encounter [Music] okay very but that I won't show no what do you want no it's okay so I've you're having so many things and we need to say anything so lots of time every time that he toed the line of being inappropriate enough where I may have said something he could sense it and he pulled me he pulled back and he changed a dynamic again let's see I wanted to show Trower him you know my movie I mean like I mean I have the Marilyn my boy so let's have a Marilyn Monroe movie people who would be interested in that movie who would be interested okay okay so would it be what's hard to didn't grapple with okay so we're gonna buy space we're gonna buy ad space on Volcom do you think you might have encouraged him i don't think i purposely encouraged him at first I tried to you know volley a little bit with him you know if you'd make a comment I would try to catch it return it in a way that felt its little safer than the way he threw it at me now I see he's trying to in any way you can move me into that zone of comfortable than uncomfortable and confused and vulnerable and recognizing that he's powerful and I'm not and that I need this deal for him he's a man he has a power to give it to me we can have like to win two VIP passes to the premiere in New York and they have to like it so now you're generating all these lights interface bridge well okay yemeni is your service marilyn realm disciples and so going from almost pulling a trigger on using this platform to then you put his hand up under the table up my chest i was trying to save face but at first i was trying to kind of manage a situation there was a combination of confidence and a naivety that let me check you know this dynamic that we see now TV so hot very crucial to survive it is [Music] so another thing I was thinking is surge I don't know how much you run off at the surgical park a movie with skyrocket awesome kind of acting like a by the look where they wanted to in the trailer they wanted people to be able to buy her clothing so they've partnered with outlook and I tried to keep it on script in terms of pitching him the product but I still touched me on the shoulder he was still touching we have to change our head as that's happening I what do i do how did I get myself here I lost my train of thought and I was trying so hard to to gain back my own mental footing at some point he hit his wife had changed and and he looks at the predator he is his eyes became dark I was reeling over the the the dynamic he created and was controlling and it couldn't understand how to counterbalance him and the answers it was impossible but at the time I didn't know that and I was sort of struggling with with it what would you say to someone who might watch that and say well - it was flirting with him is that what you see when you watch it it was more tricky than I think it's possible to judge from looking at it every time Wall Street before I went to business school and I worked in an environment that was heavily male-dominated I thought I could handle it I had never met any one that I couldn't handle until Harvey Weinstein when you go to the kitchen you adjust the angle of the computer I did why I knew that I was losing the ability to control the distribution you keep it professional so I had injured that fight-or-flight mode and I was scared of him you under the impression that that meeting was to close the deal potentially yes so it wasn't at 10:00 p.m. it wasn't an invitation to come to his hotel room it was invitation to a hotel lobby that was within blocks of the office and so that to me felt much safer than being alone with him in his office he walked in with a brisk stride and found me in the lobby didn't even sit down and I had ordered a diet coke and he threw cash on the table I said we're going we're going this way we get into the elevator and before I know it he opens the door and closes it locks it and I look around eyes --as I'm the hardy wise his hotel room how how did I get myself here and I was probably the wrong question to us how did I get myself here but that's what I was doing me the entire time it's difficult to explain but it's he is a master predator Weinstein denies all accusations of rape his lawyer at the time Benjamin Bratt man told us that there was no evidence of anything forceful in the video only casual awkward flirting from both parties he also said that it was produced by Melissa to help her case in a civil lawsuit seeking money for melissa and many of the other accusers this video doesn't just reveal bad behavior behind a locked door it's also evidence of what they refer to as the Weinstein complicity machine a system designed to serve up young women and look the other way they put money or morals and I want my daughter to grow up in a world where decisions are made driven by a sense of humanity and compassion and people are held accountable because it's not it's no longer just it's not just Harvey Weinstein it's it's many people who could have still could have done something and didn't I feel incredibly angry that Harvey harmed so many women and that so many people supported his behavior I think that's been the hardest thing to recognize is that we were all duped but duped by groups of people the only way someone like Harvey Weinstein gets away with what he did for so long to so many people is because there are people facilitating it around him it's not just people looking the other way it's people making it happen I think it was about business they prioritize business over his behavior being very immoral unethical it was all about winning the Oscars and the Oscars kept coming until something unexpected brought down the king of Hollywood [Music] by 2017 the weinstein company was a juggernaut worth millions Harvey Weinstein was part of the network of the ultra famous uber wealthy and mega powerful I will be embarrassing many superstars tonight as usual and I'm probably in a rare position to be able to get away with it unfortunately what can they do about it but then something extraordinary happened a small group of women published their stories that included Rose McGowan who had finally decided it was time I've been plotting and planning and playing my own game of chess because culturally we weren't there you know we weren't there and I knew if I had just come out and some story some little story I would have been crushed they were they painted me as if I was erratic and crazy for years and it would just go into their PlayBook so I had to wait and I had to buy my time Zelda Perkins broke free of her non-disclosure agreement I realized there must be lots of other people in my position and that it was really important to show that if I broke the agreement the earth wouldn't open up and swallow me and it would give other people the courage to come forward and that we could just get this over and done with and exposing properly and send him down they got their timings right some of the most famous names in Hollywood came forward alongside dozens of others it was one thing that the article came out and I thought okay well great they got him yes you will it was right after that he said oh it's such a good story I want to buy the movie rights it was such a condescending disrespectful comment that I knew I had to do something and he was threatening to sue the New York Times and I thought oh absolutely not I mean I'll put my face out there I had no intention of saying anything publicly because honestly Who am I I'm not you know a major film star but I knew those women were telling the truth and I couldn't believe how brave they were for coming out against him and so when a reporter called me and said that he had heard that something had happened to me in the past I said yeah oh I'll tell you everything I'm telling the truth and I did nothing wrong and I had to kind of repeat that to myself to give myself the courage to just put some it was very private and very traumatizing out there I didn't imagine the story to be as big as it was I really didn't I thought that it would be out there and he would deny it and probably pay people to keep quiet about it and pay to make it go away I mean that's what he's always done um but I felt like at least I would feel like I did my part but the story didn't go away because all of a sudden all of these women started coming out of the woodwork like it was an avalanche of accusations against him more than he could keep track of or try and keep quiet and then I realized Wow this this is really happening the house of cards came tumbling down with astonishing speed Harvey Weinstein's second wife left him he was sacked from his own company and he checked into a rehab clinic for sex addiction [Music] but from the ashes of his entertainment empire rosed the me2 movement and with it a global reckoning on consent and the abuse of power I can't say that I anticipated the global aspect of it but I was hoping that it would show people everywhere that they could topple a power structure that it would have a big domino effect for 20 years I have been slut-shamed I've been harassed would you call what has been sparked a revolution I think it's completely revolutionary I can't remember the last time there was one other than you know there's a civil rights movement there's the gay rights movement we needed a revolution we needed a reset women have played nice for a real long time I didn't suspect it was getting women very far the thing that puts it in perspective for me is that so many men they're saying do we just live in fear you know feel uncomfortable or question how we're acting all the time and it's like women have been doing that all of their lives and you know welcome to our world the movement grew some feeling its power others testing its limits me too touching every part of society it's got to stop and it's really mind-blowing that women are treated this way and and that we have all been told we have to just put up with it it's just the way it is well guess what it ain't that way anymore [Music] in May 2008 een Harvey Weinstein was arrested and appeared in court charged with sex crimes seeing him in handcuffs like made me cry I never thought I would see the day you know that he would be in handcuffs like it was amazing I hope he's convicted I hope this is a man who who ruined lives I mean he ruined lives he crushed dreams he really destroyed so many women I mean he ran this town he was the guy if you wanted to be in a film and if you wanted to be in good award-winning films he was the only one to go to so I hope he pays for that it's important for other men too now you want to act this way then you're gonna lose everything and you should lose everything because you have crushed and I mean crushed a lot of women the moment left some of Weinstein's former colleagues reflecting on the end of an era they were once so proud of instead of it being like oh you were at the you know the top indie shop that changed changed the film business in the 90s it's it's now like oh you work for Harvey Weinstein he sounds like a real pig it leaves such a bad taste in your mouth I just I don't want to relive it it's truly horrifying what he's done and [Music] he deserves everything he gets [Music] it's like having somebody retro actively pull the rug out from under your 20s and saying it didn't really matter it was all just awful you know I when people in my life found out that I used to work for Miramax they were impressed and I was proud of that and now I used to work at a new york-based home company you know I'm not gonna say it if I'm not asked because it's it's it's I'm ashamed of it I should be shamed the impulse to worship Weinstein rather than challenge him may have had consequences on a jaw-dropping scale dozens of women have joined forces to sue him and their lawyer believes there could be many more how many women do you think Harvey Weinstein may have targeted I think we're talking about hundreds I think it could be near a thousand I I think that based on what we know and what has already been made public at least 150 women have come forward in some way on top of that we have employees who said that there were women in his office three times a week where he where they would have to go in and clean up after him knowing that he had just done something and ejaculated so if you're talking about three times a week at least for all the number of years that he's been in power at near Max and The Weinstein Company there that's a lot of women and there are questions about how much really has shifted do you think there are other Harvey Weinstein's out there in Hollywood I know for a fact there are other Harvey Weinstein's in Hollywood right now I could name 20 people off the top of my head right now it's Hollywood they think if they get the ugly guy gone and they can return to their like perfect looking world and still continue as they continue you know they think that basically it's like a red herring for the world look see we got rid of them they didn't get rid of they didn't do anything overtime they gave him new deals and saved his business over and over many of the accusers believed that lasting change will only come if there is victory in the courts not just against Weinstein himself but the businesses and people they believed protected him and so if we can send the message to these companies and these people who run these companies and set a precedent that protecting predators actually costs me more money than dealing with them and doing the right thing then maybe things will start to change Leeds officer holding people accountable for witnessing abuses of power and not stopping it not saying something not intervening had people been more vocal and not said yeah that's Harvey or yeah I we have to look at that you don't we don't have to live with things that are illegal and abusive and and we don't have to we don't have to live with being raped only think we're going to a business meeting the environment has to be changed you know the system that enables the behavior you know this is much bigger than Harvey Weinstein and it's much bigger than gender it's about power and it's about how we respond as a culture to power there has been story after story but Harvey Weinstein has consistently denied all allegations of non-consensual sexual contact his brother Bob and other executives named in lawsuits also deny any wrongdoing the Weinstein story and the fallout continue [Music] you

Channel: Sky News

Views: 1,893,639

Rating: 4.3794398 out of 5

Keywords: HARVEY WEINSTEIN, SEX, ABUSE, POWER, INTIMIDATE, HOLLYWOOD, FILM, MOVIE, PRODUCER, CHARGED, MOGUL, OSCARS, ASSAULT, ME TOO, #METOO, EMPOWERMENT, ROSE MCGOWAN, JENNIFER LAWRENCE, PREDATOR, GWYNETH PALTROW, MASSAGE, MASTURBATE, PLANT, DAWN DUNNING, RAPE, CASTING COUCH, DOMINIQUE HUETT, LOUISETTE GEISS, LAUREN SIVAN, QUENTIN TARANTINO, SARAH ANN MASSE, MELISSA THOMPSON, BOB WEINSTEIN, FEAR, ZELDA PERKINS, MIRAMAX

Id: GESBI9pWWmI

Length: 46min 14sec (2774 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 25 2019