Harvey Weinstein still has not been arrested. There are ongoing investigations in Los Angeles, New York and London around his history of abuse, harassment, assault and rape. I’ve said all along that we should probably make our peace with the fact that it was unlikely that Weinstein would ever face criminal charges or any kind of criminal prosecution. But in civil court, it’s a whole different story. I fully expect – nay, I hope – that Weinstein will be sued into oblivion. It’s already started – on Wednesday (December 6th), six women filed a class-action suit against Weinstein, Miramax and The Weinstein Company, comparing the systemic harassment and abuse to an organized crime organization. The six plaintiffs are: Louisette Geiss, Katherine Kendall, Zoe Brock, Sarah Ann Masse, Melissa Sagemiller, and Nannette Klatt.
As part of the lawsuit filings, there were claims made that Weinstein used to drop the names of the famous women he had allegedly seduced, or the women who slept with him willingly to further their careers. We talked about that in regards to Gwyneth Paltrow too – after he harassed her in a hotel room in the mid-90s, he apparently told other women that Gwyneth had slept with him to further her career. Apparently, he said the same about Renee Zellweger and Charlize Theron. Zellweger’s rep slapped back:
Renée Zellweger’s rep says the actress never gave Harvey Weinstein any “sexual favors.”
“If Harvey said that, he’s full of s—,” a rep for the actress said in a statement to PEOPLE.
The producer allegedly told aspiring actresses that he received “sexual favors” from Zellweger, along with other stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Charlize Theron, as examples of how a sexual relationship with him could help their careers, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday. Weinstein allegedly told one actress “that Renée Zellweger, Charlize Theron and other actresses gave sexual favors.” He then allegedly asked, “Don’t you want your career to be more than just this little teen film?”
Zellweger has starred in several Weinstein productions including her Oscar winning performance in Cold Mountain. The new lawsuit was filed by six women who claim the disgraced mogul’s efforts to cover up his alleged crimes amount to civil racketeering. Filed in New York and obtained by PEOPLE, the lawsuit claims that Weinstein’s former companies Miramax, The Weinstein Company and members of its board conspired with the producer to “perpetuate and conceal [his] widespread sexual harassment and assault.”
I remember those days – the early 00s – when Renee was starring in one Weinstein-produced film after another. People forget that Weinstein produced the Bridget Jones’ movies, and that Weinstein was widely credited with getting Renee an Oscar nomination for Bridget Jones’s Diary too. Then there was Chicago, and Cold Mountain, which finally got Renee a well-deserved Oscar, and Harvey was largely credited with all of those campaigns. Now, did anyone really think that Renee was doing a quid-pro-quo with Weinstein during that time? I didn’t. But Weinstein was apparently telling people that she slept with him for those roles. Ugh. I believe Renee.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
She used her as a bait. Plain and simple.
I’m a broken record on this from the past 2-3 years. I’ve always blamed gossip rags and women online that perpetuated the myth these actresses only got Oscars because they slept with Harvey. Whereas the actors on the same films really deserved their awards.
I’m sorry but men usually don’t offer you jobs after they sleep with you in this day and age. There are plenty of beautiful young women wanting to act that they can play that game with. Those girls usually get shown the door and “forgotten”. That’s like saying any guy who has sex with a virgin or gets a woman pregnant is going to marry her! Yes, in Old Hollywood when society was strict about pre-marital sex and studio heads used their actresses for sex, it was a thing.
Just ask the many boys Brian Singer sexually abused how many were given roles he promised them before sex. It’s a con. You don’t get Oscars fromsex unless you have the best vagina that ever lived and have a PhD in sex!
I don’t agree with you. Realistically, Harvey DID coerce some women into sleeping with him. Possibly very successful women. But 1) “coerced” is not a real yes. It is a massive abuse of power and very very wrong. 2) these women are not obligated to tell their stories. There is a spectrum of experiences, and when we try to reason it by saying “that can’t possibly have happened” we are generally setting ourselves up to be proven wrong. Remember, this isn’t about sexual attraction. It didn’t matter if there were plenty of attractive, ‘willing’ women. It was about power and domination.
I agree with Bridget here. That there is a whole spectrum of experiences that women have had with Harvey. There is a reason the casting couch rumours exist, and why he used that as a bargaining chip.
I do believe Renee here though. I doubt he would actually expose women who he coerced into sleeping with him, and who went on to have successful careers. Or would he?
Calling it “the casting couch” only further stigmatizes the women who were manipulated, though. That wasn’t a bargaining chip. It was coercion. It was sexual harrassment. Forcing women to trade sexual favors for career advancement, even if they say “yes” is still sexual harassment.
Renee keeps such a low profile.
Imagine now having to deal with an avalanche of such BS!
It’s like every time you think you’ve hit bottom, the floor gives way. What a piece of garbage he is, and how many other women are going to have to now issue the female version of “I never harassed her” which is turning out to be “I never did anything remotely sexual with him.”
I know! This is utterly, utterly infuriating.
I am trying to adopt an attitude of zen, accepting where we are and what we know at this moment. Mostly because the floor dropping out on me is really beginning to have a destabilizing effect.
I so hear you, @Betsy.
Poor Renee tries to keep a low profile and has to now deal with this sh*t. I’ve always felt kind of sad for her as she was very talented but when she hit a certain age Hollywood basically dumped her. Her face has definitely settled, but people were also acting like her plastic surgery was like Kris Jenner level and it was never that bad.
Can she sue him?
It doesn’t really matter what he says anymore, does it? The fact that he’s a proven liar is the least of his appalling character traits. It’s horrible that women and men are put in the position of having to defend themselves against grubs like Weinstein in the first place. Where is the lying, depraved piece of filth these days, anyway? Hopefully, he’s fallen into a dark, fiery, bottomless pit near some expensive tropical resort, never to be seen again.
This is just another way he has abused women – spreading lies about them and smearing their reputation. Absolute pig.
Renee would never ever service that gross creep for her career,. I doubt anyone believed him.
The worst part is the way that kind of statement diminished Renee’s accomplishments. It reduces her success to her willingness to trade her body to that pile of slime. Renée hustled HARD. For years.
i love those pics. he has his chin held high and she’s looking down- yet physically interacting with him.
I actually side-eye reporting the names of women he used as bait. In the piece about Gwyneth Paltrow the other day, some commenters seems to believe Paltrow was lying about not being involved. I don’t think, in this case, we should be providing the public with information that can effect these women’s careers. Look at what happened to Gretchen Mol.
I agree. Was it necessary from a legal standpoint to name the women in the lawsuit? This seems like further victimizing potential victims. Even if his claims were true, those women would have been coerced into it. Charlize Theron is not jumping into bed with a man like Harvey Weinstein because of sexual desire.
Same here. It puts women who may have been forced/assaulted/coerced at risk of having to open up about something they might not be ready for the whole world to discuss, just to save themselves from being falsely accused of and shamed for willingly bedding their abuser. If any woman who gets named did willingly and actively pursue an opportunity to trade sexual activity for a role she wanted, she’ll be scarlet-lettered for whatever’s left of her life, put at risk of being a target for violent, unbalanced individuals and extremist groups, and used as a scapegoat (both by conservatives/MRAs who want to say, “See, it’s not about rape at all. It’s just about prostitution gone wrong” and by ‘progressives’ who will want to blame her consensual sex for Harvey’s sex crimes). And it also opens the women who fall under neither of those two categories but who’s name was used by Harvey up to the slut-shaming too, because there will always be people falsely accusing them of owing their careers to servicing a serial rapist.
I believe renee. But honestly, even if she did sleep with him to further her career. That’s ok too. It’s her choice. The issue I have is when it’s not their choice and they are pressured into it. Effing creep.
I believe her. But as I posted before, my issue with all these actors and actresses is NOT who slept with him to advance their careers, but why did they work with him AT ALL? Given the sheer number of actresses who have come forward already (and there are probably many, many, more) there is no way any Hollywood insider didn’t know what Weinstein was like. Yet so many of them continued to work with him and support his movies.
So do I believe Zellweger never traded sex for favors? Yes, I absolutely believe that. I don’t think Ben Affleck or Matt Damon had sex with Weinstein either. Or Jennifer Lawrence, or Gwyneth Paltrow, or George Clooney. Or many, many, others. Yet they all continued to work with him and support his movies. THAT is how he continued to hold power in Hollywood, which enabled him to continue abusing women. I don’t think most actors held more power than he did, but the ONE THING they could have done is simply decline to be in or support his movies, yet they all continued to support him. I feel the same way about actors and actresses who work with and support Roman Polanski and Woody Allen, too.