Just days after taking a leave of absence from The Weinstein Company, legendary super-producer Harvey Weinstein has been officially fired from The Weinstein Company, effective immediately. The official reason given was "misconduct", but for those who have been reading the news over the past several days, it's fairly clear "misconduct" is a more sanitized way of saying many allegations of sexual harassment.
You can read the full statement from The Weinstein Company below...
In light of new information about misconduct by Harvey Weinstein that has emerged in the past few days, the directors of The Weinstein Company - Robert Weinstein, Lance Maerov, Richard Koenigsberg and Tarak Ben Ammar - have determined, and have informed Harvey Weinstein, that his employment with The Weinstein Company is terminated, effective immediately.
Harvey Weinstein's career in Hollywood began in the late 1970s with a string of concert films. Off that success, Harvey, alongside his brother Bob, launched Miramax. The company produced a string of popular and important independent films including Sex, Lies and Videotape and The Thin Blue Line, and they also embarked on a high profile lawsuit against the MPAA, which directly led to the creation of the NC-17 rating. A sale to Disney soon followed, along with beloved movies such as Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare In Love, Clerks and Gangs Of New York. Years later, the brothers launched The Weinstein Company, and until recently, they've remained perennial Oscar contenders almost every February.
But amidst all the glitz, the glamor and the awards, there have always been some less than tasteful stories about Weinstein floating below the surface. Most of those stories centered around the producer's supposed bad temper, but a recent New York Times article chronicled a long history of alleged sexual harassment. The very extensive and very thorough piece accused the mogul of offering career boosts in exchange for sexual favors, of asking female assistants and co-workers to give him massages while he was naked and of paying off some of these women, both famous and not, to make any complaints go away. It even included an account from Ashley Judd in which she said, on the record, he asked her to watch him shower. In the time since, more stories from other outlets have emerged, as well.
It's unclear what, if anything, will happen to Harvey Weinstein from here. He's started over and built companies from the ground up before, but those efforts required collaborators who wanted to do business. Right now, it's hard to imagine many in Hollywood being eager to go into business with a producer engaging in this alleged behavior. There's also a possibility some of these accusations could evolve into civil lawsuits or even matters in which the police would need to get involved.
We'll keep you updated as more details of this regrettable story emerge.
