A lust for power beyond reason
NARCISSISM can be a dangerous thing. Narcissists are usually leaders. They’re uber-charismatic. They’re very personable.
They need to be admired. They are usually the main topic of their own conversations. They never take the blame. They’re more likely to cheat. They name-drop because it suggests importance. They have an air of entitlement. They are averse to criticism. They usually leave a trail of wreckage behind them.
Some of the characteristics are undeniably possessed by alphatype personalities, the sort of character that thrives in the Hollywood “Look at ME” melee.
Los Angeles is the capital of strange. It’s also a town full of people who want to be someone else. Full of people who know who to schmooze to get what they want.
During my years working there, I discovered what a small, incestuous one-horse town it actually is. Same old faces at most of the film premieres and award ceremonies: Cruise, Kidman, Pitt, Paltrow, Streep, Spielberg, Hanks et al. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
And always present, the man they all adored – Mr Harvey Weinstein – kingpin, svengali, enabler extraordinaire. Larger than life, always smiling, as charismatic as hell.
And now, as it seems from the initial denials of any wrongdoing following the slew of sexual harassment and rape allegations levelled at him, we can add to that – premier narcissist in denial.
He is the centre of his own universe. He actually believes he’s done nothing wrong. He doesn’t like criticism. He WILL not be blamed.
Maybe he’s got a point. You don’t ask to be a narcissist after all. He can’t help it that he thinks everyone needs a bit of him, that he reckons only he has the power to give the glory that aspiring actresses seek.
His behaviour was repugnant, wrong, criminal. He didn’t see it that way. And there are men like him, usually bosses of some sort, who get away with what Weinstein’s been accused of in every town in every country in the world.
From the fat, sleazy, leering blokes who used to pinch my backside when their wives weren’t looking when I worked as a waitress; to the boss who regularly pinned me up against the stockroom wall, hand down his trousers, when, age 14, I worked Saturdays in a shop; to the furtive pervert who rubbed himself up and down my leg as I stood on a crowded bus. Narcissistic. In denial. All of them.
They’re not just in LA, they’re everywhere. I encountered Harvey Weinstein many times, thankfully never in a room on my own. Back in London, as I was leaving my stint on the GMTV sofa one day, he swept up in a huge black vehicle, got out, saw me and bundled over. “Hey, Fiona, I think you’re great,” he yelled. “Been watching you in my hotel room.” I was made up at the time. Harvey WEINSTEIN thinks I’M great!
Now, on reflection, it makes me feel slightly ill.
He is the ultimate narcissist, leaving a trail of wreckage