Bob Weinstein accused of inappropriate behavior by female TV producer
Bob Weinstein on Tuesday denied an accusation that he made unwanted advances toward a female showrunner working for the Weinstein Company last year.
The showrunner, Amanda Segel, is an executive producer on Spike TV’s The Mist. Segel claims that beginning last summer, Weinstein repeatedly asked her to dine alone with him and made romantic overtures despite her multiple refusals, according to Variety.
The accusation raises fresh questions about what Weinstein Company executives knew and were willing to tolerate when it came to accusations of sexual misconduct against the company’s founders.
The board fired Harvey Weinstein, Bob’s brother, just days after several women accused him of sexual harassment in a New York Times story.
But Segel claims the harassment by Bob Weinstein didn’t stop until her attorney warned Weinstein Company executives, including its chief financial officer, that she was prepared to quit the show. Bob Weinstein became head of the Weinstein Company after his brother’s deposal.
Segel claims the harassment began after she and Bob Weinstein met for dinner in June 2016 in what she says she considered a professional context. During the meal, she claims, Weinstein asked her age, indicating he didn’t want to be romantically involved with someone younger than his daughter, and asked her what Variety calls “highly intimate questions”. After dinner, according to Segel, he invited her up to his hotel room, and Segel declined.
After the dinner, Segel claims, Weinstein attempted several times to see her again, according to Variety, “joking at times that he was her boss and could fire her if she didn’t agree”. He invited her to a party at a rented home in Malibu, but gave her the impression that the evening would involve just the two of them, Segel claimed.
“‘No’ should be enough,” Segel said, according to Variety. “After ‘no’, anybody who has asked you out should just move on. Bob kept referring to me that he wanted to have a friendship. He didn’t want a friendship. He wanted more than that. My hope is that ‘no’ is enough from now on.”
The Weinstein Company denied to Variety that an attorney for Segel had contacted the chief operating officer.
A representative for Bob Weinstein denied to the magazine that he had engaged in inappropriate behavior, and said: “Bob Weinstein had dinner with Ms Segel in LA in June 2016. He denies any claims that he behaved inappropriately at or after the dinner. It is most unfortunate that any such claim has been made.”
Bob Fields, a lawyer for Weinstein, said: “Variety’s story about Bob Weinstein is riddled with false and misleading assertions by Ms Segel and we have the emails to prove it, but even if you believe what she says it contains not a hint of any inappropriate touching or even any request for such touching.
“There is no way in the world that Bob Weinstein is guilty of sexual harassment, and even if you believed what this person asserts there is no way it would amount to that.”
Bob Weinstein has forcefully denounced his brother over accusations that Harvey Weinstein harassed or sexually assaulted dozens of women during his long career
in Hollywood. Despite reports to the contrary, the Weinstein Company claims that accusations of rape and sexual assault “come as an utter surprise” to Bob Weinstein and its other board members.
Representatives for Bob Weinstein and Amanda Segel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.