BOOTED AFTER SLEAZE PLAY
WEINSTEIN SUSPENDED FROM OWN FIRM
HARVEY WEINSTEIN was suspended indefinitely from his film company Friday pending an internal investigation into claims that he sexually harassed women — including aspiring actresses — over the last three decades.
The company’s board announced the move after naming lawyer John Kiernan from the firm Debevoise & Plimpton as head of the private company probe.
“It is essential to our company's culture that all women who work for it or have any dealings with it or any of our executives are treated with respect and have no experience of harassment or discrimination,” the board said in a statement.
The board stopped short of firing Weinstein but said his return would be contingent upon therapeutic progress and Kiernan’s findings.
“As Harvey has said, it is important for him to get professional help for the problems he has acknowledged,” the board statement read.
The board of the Tribeca-based production company hashed out its response in emergency meetings Thursday and Friday in the wake of an explosive New York Times report claiming Weinstein preyed on female staffers and aspiring actresses including Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan.
It came after Variety reported Weinstein’s own brother and cochairman Bob Weinstein called for his permanent departure from the company they co-founded.
Amid screaming matches and infighting, board member Dirk Ziff resigned Friday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Unidentified insiders told Variety that Weinstein has insisted he could weather the scandal and would not resign voluntarily. They described the 65-year-old mogul as “delusional” and completely unaware of the intense backlash he’s facing online and among influential former supporters.
Bob Weinstein and Chief Operating Officer David Glasser will run the company.
Experts said Harvey Weinstein will have a hard time continuing in his field.
“I suspect very strongly this is far from over and ultimately the board, I believe, will be forced to fire him,” Mark Lipton, a professor
of management at the New School and author of the book “Mean Men: The Perversion of America’s Self-Made Man,” told the Daily News.
“How can he not be fired?” asked Richard Rushfield, founder of the entertainment industry newsletter The Ankler.
“After these revelations, he’s going to be an untouchable figure in Hollywood. Nobody can do business with him without coming under suspicion and attack themselves,” he told The News.
“Every single actor who does a film will be hit with, ‘Don’t you know there were eight women? Are their charges not worth being taken seriously?’ ” he said.
Defections among key staff at Weinstein’s company could become a problem too, the experts said.
According to The Times, Weinstein sexually harassed young actresses and female staffers over the last 30 years and reached confidential settlements with at least eight women including McGowan in 1997 and Italian model Ambra Battilana in 2015.
Battilana previously told police Weinstein groped her breasts and stuck his hand up her skirt during a meeting at his Tribeca office.
Judd told The Times Weinstein once lured her to a Beverly Hills hotel room, greeted her in a bathrobe, offered to massage her and asked if she would watch him shower.
In a rambling statement that misquoted JAY-Z lyrics, Weinstein said he was “remorseful” for the “pain” he caused.
He said he would take a leave of absence to “deal with this issue head on,” but then his lawyer Charles Harder vowed to sue The Times for writing a story “saturated with false and defamatory statements.”
For its part, The Times said it stands by the story and called on Weinstein to release the women from their nondisclosure agreements so they can speak freely without fear of reprisal.
“Mr. Weinstein and his lawyer have confirmed the essential points of the story,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha, said in a statement. “Mr. Weinstein has not pointed to any errors or challenged any facts in our story. Also, Mr. Weinstein should publicly waive the NDAs in the women’s agreements so they can tell their stories. As a supporter of women, he must support their right to speak openly about these issues of gender and power.
The Weinstein brothers cofounded The Weinstein Company in 2005 after leaving Miramax in an bitter split with Disney.
‘behavior This is egregious that no responsible board should tolerate. MARK LIPTON