Weinstein set for showdown with brother who sacked him
DISGRACED Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is set for a showdown today with his brother and other board members of the film company they founded.
Weinstein will confront the bosses who fired him in a phone call from the clinic where he is being treated in the wake of the sex scandal that has engulfed him, celebrity website TMZ reported.
Yesterday it emerged that The Weinstein Co, is in talks over a possible sale – to a close friend of Donald Trump. Tom Barrack is head of private equity firm Colony Capital, which has agreed to buy some of its assets.
Barrack, a confidant of Trump and chairman of his Presidential Inaugural Committee, is a rumored candidate for White House chief of staff.
Today Weinstein, 65, and his lawyer Patty Glaser are expected to argue that the firm did not give him a reason for why he was fired, TMZ said. Weinstein’s brother Robert, 62, is said to be ‘livid’ as he and other board members believe their decision was justified after dozens of women accused the mogul of sexually harassment, assault or rape.
Scotland Yard is investigating five alleged attacks by Weinstein in the UK spanning nearly 30 years. He is also being investigated by New York police.
Weinstein has apologised for some of his behaviour but a spokesman has said he ‘unequivocally denies allegations of non-consensual sex’.
Star Wars director J J Abrams became the latest to turn against Weinstein, calling him a ‘monster’ guilty of a ‘viciously repulsive abuse of power’.
TV presenter Julia Bradbury said yesterday that she was warned about Weinstein’s ‘roving hands’ in the 1990s, when she was a Los Angeles-based showbusiness reporter for GMTV.