Tarantino on Weinstein: ‘I knew enough to do more’
Quentin Tarantino, the Hollywood director most closely tied to Harvey Weinstein, has known for decades about the producer’s alleged misconduct toward women and now feels ashamed he did not take a stronger stand and stop working with him, he said in an interview. “I knew enough to do more than I did,” he said, citing several episodes involving prominent actresses. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. “I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” he added. “If I had done thework I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.” Allegations of sexual harassment and assault by Weinstein were disclosed this month in The New York Times and The New Yorker, which prompted other women to share their accounts of his alleged abuse, set off criminal investigations, roiled the entertainment world and triggered a social media movement of women from other industries and backgrounds telling their stories. In the latest of a series of institutional repudiations, the British Film Institute on Thursday stripped Weinstein of its highest honor, the BFI Fellowship, saying his alleged “appalling conduct” stands in opposition to the organization’s values. Tarantino said in the interview Wednesday that he had heard about Weinstein’s behavior long before the latest revelations. His own former girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, told him about unwelcome advances and unwanted touching by Weinstein. Another actress told him a similarly upsetting story years later. He also knew that actress Rose McGowan had reached a settlement with the producer. But Tarantino said he had failed to consider whether the women he knew were part of a larger pattern of abuse. Though he continued to hear alarming stories over the years, he proceeded to make film after film with Weinstein, his greatest champion — a decision he now regrets. “What I did was marginalize the incidents,” he recalled, saying he wrote them off as mild misbehavior. “Anything I say nowwill sound like a crappy excuse.”
Handler to end Netflix show to focus on activism
Netflix is ending one of its first forays into the topical talk-show genre, and with it, the number of female hosts will be reduced by one. “Chelsea,” the program hosted by Chelsea Handler, will not continue after its current second season. In a statement posted on her Twitter account, Handler said she was ending the series to focus on political activism, travel the country and work on a new Netflix documentary project. “Like somany across the country, the past presidential election and the countless events that have unfolded since have galvanizedme,” Handler wrote in her statement.