As sex scandal rages, company said to explore sale or shutdown
THE WEINSTEIN CO., the film production company part-owned by Harvey Weinstein, is exploring a sale or shutdown and is unlikely to continue as an independent entity, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, but the company’s cochairman, Bob Weinstein, denied the report.
“Our banks, partners and shareholders are fully supportive of our company and it is untrue that the company or board is exploring a sale or shutdown of the company,” co-chairman Bob Weinstein said in a statement. “Business is continuing as usual as the company moves ahead.”
The New Yorker magazine reported last Tuesday that 13 women have claimed that movie producer Harvey Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them.
Sunday last week, The Weinstein Co. fired co-chairman Harvey Weinstein, following a report of sexual harassment allegations against the executive by the New York Times.
The board previously had been considering appointing cochairman Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein’s brother, and President David Glasser to continue operating Weinstein Co. with a new name, but that plan is no longer on the table, according to the WSJ report.
AUSSIE MODEL ACCUSES
Meanwhile, an Australian model said she was “played” by Harvey Weinstein and his colleagues who engineered a hotel room meeting where he stripped naked and demanded a massage, in the latest accusation against the Hollywood mogul.
Zoe Brock said she met Weinstein at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival when she was 23 and was seated next to him at a dinner, not realizing who he was.
Brock told Australia’s Channel Nine she went back to his hotel
room with a group of his colleagues and they were eventually left alone. “He left the room and came back naked,” she alleged late Sunday. “He wanted a massage, and I didn’t want to give him one. I remember being quite frozen. He touched my back and shoulders, and I quickly knew that I couldn’t... and I got up and I ran.”
On reflection, she believes she was manipulated and targeted, not only by Weinstein but his accomplices who set up the situation. “I had been played by not just one predator but all his accomplices. Yuck,” she said.
Brock is the latest in a long line of women to accuse Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault and rape over the past week.
He has denied all allegations of non-consensual sex, but has been denounced by many in Hollywood.
WOODY ALLEN ‘SAD’
Over in London, Woody Allen feels “sad” for Weinstein over abuse allegations against the disgraced movie mogul, telling the BBC on Sunday the situation was “tragic” for the women involved.
“The whole Harvey Weinstein thing is very sad for everybody involved,” he said of the scandal.
“Tragic for the poor women that were involved, sad for Harvey that (his) life is so messed up.
“There’s no winners in that, it’s just very, very sad and tragic for those poor women that had to go through that,” Allen told the BBC.
The director himself faced allegations in the 1990s of abusing his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow, who in 2014 published an open letter in the New York Times outlining her father’s alleged abuse.
Allen’s son Ronan Farrow last year published a column in the Hollywood Reporter criticizing the media for failing to ask hard questions about his sister’s case.
He went on to be one of the journalists who investigated Weinstein, penning a piece in The New Yorker in which three women alleged he raped them.
Despite Weinstein and Allen working together, Allen told the BBC he was not aware of the serious allegations against the Hollywood powerbroker.
One of the films Allen and Weinstein collaborated on was the Oscar-winning 1995 film Mighty Aphrodite. The star of that film, Mira Sorvino, is one of the actresses who has come forward with claims against Weinstein.
“No one ever came to me or told me horror stories with any real seriousness,” Allen said.
Allen said he hoped the Weinstein case would lead to “some amelioration,” but cautioned against creating a “witch hunt atmosphere.”