This story reminds me of some stories I’ve heard about the Cannes Film Festival and how some lower-tier actresses can make lots and lots of money by doing some “escorting” at the festival, especially when the Middle Eastern princes come around in their yachts and start throwing money around. First, let’s do some backstory. Harvey Weinstein is currently at TIFF promoting the documentary/concert film 12.12.12, all about what it took to get the Sandy Relief Concert off the ground, with Harvey as the organizer. Harvey has organized these kinds of mega-concerts for charity before, and Harvey does know how to work it. Well, an unnamed “prince of an Arabian country” said he would donate a substantial amount of money to the Relief Fund if only the prince could spend some time with… Kristen Stewart.
Music and film fans may have come to the Toronto International Film Festival’s world premiere of “12.12.12” for the documentary’s flashy mix of live performances and backstage footage from the star-studded Hurricane Sandy benefit concert at Madison Square Gardens, but they stayed for the post-screening gossip.
That’s not necessarily a slight against the film itself, which was chock full of stunning footage of performances from concert stars like Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, The Who, The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney — and the remaining members of Nirvana, who get a surprisingly passing mention — and augmented with a number of delightful and often unexpected backstage moments.
Paul McCartney’s efforts to convince Alicia Keys that he’s as cool as his daughter Stella are particularly amusing. And Chris Martin’s stunned delight when Michael Stipe says that he wants him to sing along to “Losing My Religion” during the performance is almost enough to obliterate any Coldplay and/or GOOP-related stigma the singer has accrued over the years.
But nothing came close to torrent of named names and unbridled bitterness that the concert promoter and Hollywood bigwig Harvey Weinstein dished in the post-screening Q&A with his fellow event organizers James Dolan and John Sykes and doc producers Amir Bar-Lev and Meghan O’Hara. Some of the things that Weinstein willingly shared with the sold-out crowd at Toronto’s Wintergarden Theatre left Bar-Lev, the film’s director, visibly stunned at some of the things he’d missed while he was filming the event.
First of all, Weinstein gleefully confessed that he’d sold a sit-down with “Twilight” star Kristen Stewart for charity funds. Apparently the “Prince of an Arabian country” was offering to pay top dollar for a fifteen-minute chat with the chronically awkward actress.
Weinstein called Stewart and filled her in on the situation. “She said ‘How much?’ My kind of girl,” he quipped. The mogul and the prince were eventually able to agree to a $500,000 donation. In cash. The prince, Stewart and a number of bodyguards enjoyed a lovely fifteen minutes together during the concert. (The concert went on to raise $30 million.)
“She said ‘How much?’ My kind of girl.” That was enough to make my skin crawl a little bit. Harvey sounds less like a world-class organizer and more like a flesh-peddler. As for Kristen… I mean, what she did was nice. She spent some time with a prince and those 15 minutes meant $500,000 for charity. But I do have to wonder… are Arab princes really into Twilight? Or did the prince just hear about the Mini Coopering situation and thought, “Well, maybe Harvey can organize this Mini Cooper girl for me”?
Also at HuffPo – Harvey bitches about how he asked Led Zeppelin to perform at the concert but Jimmy Page was a dick to him and then Page’s lawyer was a dick to him. Harvey asked Hillary Clinton to intervene (SERIOUSLY) and Hillary suggested Bubba for the task and still Jimmy Page gave Bubba a flat-out NO. Who says no to Bubba?!
Photos courtesy of WENN and Joe Alvarez/WENN.
She’s definitely not worth half a million.
You would have thought her PR team would of wnat to publisize the video of this. I watched that whole charity thing for the victims of NY,NJ and saw Kristen say her little speech in sports shorts but there was never a mention of this. I wonder if the story is true.
LMAO such a random story
um i’m sorry but weinstein honestly thought he could get LED ZEPPELIN back together just b/c he wanted them to? uh no. no. no. no.
Zeppelin is my favorite band, before I even read the rest of the sentence I let out a HA. In my dreams
I love Led Zep even more after reading this. Good for Jimmy Page.
Jason may be pretty good, but he’s not his father. Led Zeppelin needs to stay retired, Johnny was such an integral part, without him there is no LZ, unless they go pop….
The Princess of moody meets the Prince of Arabia. This is a movie waiting to happen.
he always looks like he just let out a fart
Ew. Harvey Weinstein is less a mogul, more a pimp.
Also, kudos to Jimmy Page.
Sorry, bro. Led Zeppelin doesn’t bow to Weinstein & Co. That’s reserved for desperate starlets. *gag*
What a coincidence. I’m selling Harvey Weinstein as food nummies to a lion rescue, 15 minutes at $5 (for charity).
the story is odd, and Harvey is gross but if the Prince wants to shell out that kind of money for 15 mins. with Kristen, then whatever it’s his money and it went towards a good cause.
Harvey reminds me of Chet off Weird Science, you know the part where he was made to look like a big terd? Yeah, that’s Harvey.
Thx, that Weird Science/Chet reference made me LOL! And I couldn’t agree more!
I hope for 500 grand she took a bath & washed her nasty hair! She makes my skin crawl!
YES! Marie bringing the Weird Science reference. *high fives*
Love the Weird Science reference! I so wanted Kelly LeBrock’s accent when I was a kid.
It’s my creation… Is it real?! Lol that’s going to be stuck in my head all night
“Who says no to Bubba?”
Jimmy Page, that’s who.
LOL! YEAH – Big ole’ F U to Harvey.
Love it.
I wish there were a tape recording of THAT conversation.
Harvey Weinstein is a modern day Simon Legree.
Arab princes do love shitty actresses.
LOL, so true.
Well, this happened under the pretence of charity but we can imagine this scumy bloke pimping his actresses around.
Also, if an arabian princess wanted some time with Cumby or any male actor, I wonder if this kind of stuff would happen.
EDIT : Jimmy Page FTW !
That’s a really interesting question. Do the male actors feel they could turn down an “offer” like that without repercussions to their career? Or do the actors agree, but they up the fee?
Either way, it’s so gross.
Yes, I agree, either way it’s really gross.
I don’t think many (any) male actors get those offers…you know.
At least this was for charity though.
Arabian Princesses do not have the freedoms of their male counterparts. Saudi Arabian women may spend time with their husbands or if unmarried their brothers, but otherwise no mixed company.
Harvey is a flesh peddling monster. Special place in hell for him & his Arabian princes.
I think it sounds gross but then again people pay tons of money for charity because of a celebrity connection. A prestigious foundation here in NY charged $12,000 a plate for a fundraiser where DeNiro and Pacino made themselves available to be approached/fangirled by all of the wealthy Chanel ladies in attendance. Is this much different?
Having said this I wonder how much I would fetch for the ASPCA if I learned to breathe exclusively through my mouth.
Ew, he is so gross.
Those Arab/Asian Princes lurve their starlets. Don’t seem to discriminate on level of stardom or even quality of stardom as long as it’s there.
…
who is bubba?
Bill Clinton. The nickname was given to him early in his first term. He was a bit on the pudgy side then + he is from the south. You must be young. 😉
slowly approaching thirty. I live in the Netherlands, they just call him by his usual name here 🙂
Bush jr also has a name which took me ages to figure out it was his nickname.
Bill Clinton. It’s his nickname.
Bill Clinton
thanks dears!
He just makes my skin crawl and I’ve always suspected that he is a high end pimp on the side. Also, the fact that Jimmy Page was a dick to him makes me like Led Zeppelin even more.
Well that’s a lot of money for charity, so, great. Wow though the underlying narrative of this is…unfortunate. Hopefully the tabloids won’t go there, that would be exceptionally gross of them.
Could also be seen as responsible of them…..if that’s the reality.
So she spends 15 minutes talking to a fan and it sends 500K to relief efforts and people are hating? Weird. Can’t imagine the hate if she would have said no. No win.
Whose hating on Stewart exactly? From the comments I’m reading everyone is hating on Weinstein, and rightfully so.
Not because he arranged the donation, but because he is a. generally gross b. gross for how he spoke about Stewart (my kind of girl) and how he’s bragging that he was able to negotiate it.
She was nice to do it, no question. Now, if you are expecting people to fawn over her, then you are on the wrong site.
This story worries me because I DOUBT very seriously that is all that happened. You guys need to wake the hell up about hollywood.
@Mia
What’s so “gross” about Harry saying “my kind of girl” after Kristen asked the amount? Harry being the shrewd business man that he is was paying her a compliment for being equally business minded enough to talk about the money involved before accepting. What celebrity would turn down such an offer for a worthwhile charity? My guess is hardly any and most would have ran to the media to make sure their good deed was reported to the masses for good PR.
@Mimi
What’s gross is that most of the time being one of “Harvey’s girls” implies something else entirely.
So by bragging and saying “my type of girl”, he is taking what was a very nice and yes, shrewd business act by Stewart and giving food for fodder to interpret it differently. You can’t take the person he is known to be out of the equation. He has a reputation of being demeaning and controlling to almost everyone, but in particular to women. He is gross.
If I were Stewart I’d be kind of pissed he talked about it in the manner he did. To your point, she clearly didn’t feel the need to tell the public about it. And it’s not like he said, “Kristen Stewart was really generous and helped a great cause”. He spoke about it as if the prince and Stewart were pawns for him to manipulate.
@Mia
“What’s gross is that most of the time being one of “Harvey’s girls” implies something else entirely.”
Like buying Oscars for his starlets? This is different. He asked Kristen to auction off a 15 minute supervised visit. Not so different from the time he asked Robert to auction off a kiss at the AmfAR charity in Cannes. Both Kristen and Robert complied and both made a lot of money for charity.
Sorry but I don’t see any disrespect towards Kristen from Harvey…only appreciation and a nice story to tell on the red carpet at TIFF while promoting his Hurricane Sandy “12-12-12” documentary.
Weinstein has a reputation for getting parts for women after they give him their bodies in return. He’s the ultimate casting-couch sleaze, if you believe the rumors. So getting called Harvey’s “kind of girl” does have really gross connotations.
That having been said, I think Weinstein was applauding Stewart for being willing to schmooze for a good cause. And I believe that’s all she did, because this is a fairly common thing, “the celebrity auction.” And to my mind, that’s not nearly as sleazy as the perform-for-$3M/get-paid-to-attend-a-party circuit, because it’s for charity.
But no actress in Hollywood wants to be caught in a whiff of a trade-for-favors situation with old Uncle Harv. No.
I think I would spend 15 minutes with just about anybody if it meant half a mill for my charity.
I’m not gonna shade her for this. She spent 15 minutes with some dude and he gave half a mil to charity. Big deal. It’s not like she coopered him.
Seriously. This chick could sneeze and everyone would be up-in-arms “HOW DARE SHE??”
It’s charity, guys, it’s a good thing.
Literally no one here is throwing shade though, all the shade is aimed at Weinstein.
You’re so right, TherapyCranes! Kristen did a good deed.
Shade is definitely being thrown at Kristen, perhaps in a more subtle way though. From the blaring header “Harvey Weinstein sold Kristen Stewart to an Arab prince for $500,000 (for charity)” to a huge part of this story being devoted to the celebrity escort circuit, Kristen is being tainted with the whiff of scum.
He proves time and time again how little respect he has for women and that he’s a predator. SO sad that disgusting men like him are so powerful. Between the casting couch stuff and his support of Polanski, is this any surprise?
As far as I know this hasn’t been told until now and he made it a story at TIFF. Kristen undoubtedly wanted to keep it quiet since the story never appeared anywhere during that time. She may be highly pissed at Harvey for telling it for the tabloids probably are going to have a field day with the story.
There are several weird things about this story. Certainly one of them is the fact that this girl is incredibly rich from the twilight movies. If I were in her shoes and received an offer like this, rather than come off like some primo callgirl being sold, I would have thanked the Prince and written a check myself for the same amount of money for the charity. She could afford it easy, and it’s a write-off anyway.
Robert auctioned a kiss for charity several years ago, and no one thought it ewww. A kiss is way more personal than a 15 min conversation. How come no one compared him to an escort. Double standard?
Re Rob, it was a young girl, a kiss on the cheek, and the girl’s dad was standing right next to her. So “intimate” isn’t the word I would use.
And like someone else said, props to Kristen for giving her 15 minutes, but ewww to Weinstein for how he is selling it.
No “double standard” intended. I think a lot of it has to do with the vibe of Saudi princes having a history of employing (using) attractive American woman more or less as escorts. The setup sounds sleazy because of that, even if the end result was innocent.
BTW, If a Saudi prince had purchased the kiss with Rob, I would have thought that was a bit sleazed as well 🙂
While you manage to make that sound pretty gross, celebrities auction off their time for charity all the time. It’s not exactly an escort business, you just get a sitdown and a chat with a cup of coffee. Some fan is happy and the cause, whatever it is, gets a nice chunk of money. It would have been outright weird if she had not done it
@Anne De Vries
That’s very true. Celebrities auction themselves off all the time for charity. This includes meals, “dates”, set visits, and even kisses. Robert Pattinson offered a kiss to the highest bidder at a Cannes AmfAR charity auction which Harry Weinstein was also involved in. I think someone paid $6,000 for a kiss from Robert. In this case, Kristen spent 15 minutes chatting with a Prince at a charity concert for Hurricane Sandy victims for a half million dollar donation. Good for any celebrity who helps raise money for charity.
To be accurate, Rob auctioned off two kisses totalling $40,000 at the Cannes AmFar event. Bid on by fathers of two young girls. No idea where $6,000 came from.
@ Anname. The top bidder was a young girl, but that’s irrelevant, it didn’t have to be. I’m sure he would have kissed whoever won. And a kiss, even on the cheek, is personal. I’m not shading him, it was a nice deed. Her donation is too. And I agree that Weinstein bringing it up is in poor taste.
The over- defensiveness on some of these posts is nuts- Harvey W was being called out on his sleazy choice of words describing how this donation came about. There was no criticism of KS anywhere in the article- yet, here comes the “well, Rob did it too!” chorus.
Lots of stars participate in charity auction events. Sharon Stone has practically created a second career hosting the AMFAR gala/auction in Cannes every year- and good for her. Let’s stop defining these two by a relationship that appears to be in both of their rear view windows!
Somewhere on Long Island, DUIna & Lindsay Lohan are feverishly putting in calls to Mr. Weinstein trying to get in on this deal.
I wonder just how much these “Arab princes” with loads and loads of cash (many from incredibly misogynistic and oppressive governments) run Hollywood, how much Hollywood does things to make them happy. It would explain an awful lot.
…lol Arabs run Hollywood.
Money runs the world, not just hollywood.
not bashing Kristen, just in general i find those deals kind of disgusting.
yeah yeah charity but i mean if he wanted to donate the money why not just donate without getting something in return?
and im just against paying someone to spent time with them even if its for a good cause and voluntarily. i mean what guy wants to shell big bucks to SPEAK to a woman?
but i love this story a lot actually because of Harvey. thats really how he sees himself. casually calling LED ZEPPLIN and thinking they will bow down and when they dont he calls Hillary. the guys whose stories make 80s rockstars look like choir boys certainly would be afraid of Hillary.
Lovely way Weinstein promoted this act of charity. Kristen is just starting to come off a massive cheating scandal and he sells this to the press as if this prince is giving to Sandy Relief in exchange for her favors. Although that’s not what really happened, the way Weinstein put it out there made it seem less than charitable.
Yeah, this is really gross and makes me wonder if Harvey is telling this story in retaliation against Kristen for not succumbing to his charms.
I don’t believe in the Arab prince story. Me think it might be someone in the entertainment industry but it’s always convenient when it’s an arab prince.. And contrary to popular belief there re not many real arab princes or princesses. A wallet and a turban or national attire doesn’t automatically scream prince.
Ibn Saud alone had ~ 50 sons who all went on to be married multiple times themselves and have many children, and he had 10 daughters, and that is only one former Arab ruler. So if that’s not much to you, I don’t know what is
I expected a lot of slut-shaming on this thread, but most people behaved themselves. Good job 🙂
I think the bashing of both Kristen and Rob is getting old and boring except on a few sites that keep stirring the pot and keeping the kettle hot.
LOVE Jimmy Page & this just makes me love him even more.
Pssst..Harvey. It looks like you have a bit of herpes on your lip, dude. Stop mini-coopering KStew, man.
Was watching the Twilight movies and found them entertaining – KS is good because she was very convincing. They had a very good crew for those films too – it is great to see some acting that can make you suspend your disbelief.
15 minutes smalltalk and someone gives 500k to a charity. Sounds good!
This is so creepy and shady all around. From Harvey basically acting as a pimp, to the “Arabian Prince” spending that kind of money that who knows where it came from to Kristen letting a guy perv on her for “charity” and most likely also to get on Harvey’s good side. He ain’t getting you an Oscar, sweetheart.
Succinct and to the point! I agree.
Love the part about KS looking to get on Harvey’s good side.
He paid that much to be bored to death?
LOL, that’s all I can say..
I like how Harvey organized a charity concert and then… made a film in order to profit from it.
Unless all of the profits from the doc are also being given to charities?
Either way, he’s still the scummiest. Uncle Scum.
I look at it this way– I have never watched any of the Twilight films, but I saw a LOT of coverage of (red carpet) Kristen Stewart on magazines, blogs, etc. The Arab prince probably saw a lot of that too and looked at her as some sort of status symbol, without having watched that sparkly vampire crap.
Sure is a lot of self-promotion going on there, Harvey. I wonder how much money he himself donated, and also how much of the 30 million raised actually was spent on charity?
I recall that a number of celebrities, such as Sandra Bullock, quietly donated a lot of money – directly from their own accounts – after Katrina. I think that is always more laudable then the showy rich ones who donate their time performing while asking those who are not wealthy to pony up the actual cash.
As HILARIOUS as this may be, I kind of still think it’s cool. I’m sure she has a great business sense and isn’t afraid to demand the bigger cut, but it’s for a good cause and I don’t see her as being the kind of person who’d do this for any other reason. That I’ll give her, at least, lol.
Hi Celebitchy! I’m new. I like you guys!
As much as I dislike Kristin as an actress, it was very nice of her to do this for charity, I don’t think it’s cool that Harvey is talking about it and in a classless way. As for charitable contributions I find it tacky to expect something for giving, the satisfaction of actually helping should be thanks enough, I really hope all of the money from the concert and this film actually goes to the Hurricane victims, there are still a lot of people without homes and in debt from having to restart their lives.
Just talking eh? Why would he want to “just talk” with Kristen Stewart of all people? if this story is true then they did more than talking. I say that because of the general shadiness of Hollywood and the recent stories of actresses doing escorting on the side. Even if Kristen makes a lot of money *now*, doesn’t mean she will make a lot in the future (yeah I don’t think all the money will go to charity), and it’s still a lot of money! And if Harvey, who has big influence over Hollywood, asks you, you tend to go along. Especially as a young actress with an uncertain future career wise….
And I love Jimmy.
This is THE most bizarre thing I’ve read all summer, hands down. That’s all I can say.
I’m kind of surprised so many people are all “Good on you, Led Zeppelin! Who does Harvey think he is?”. Bear in mind this concert was put together to assist the victims of Sandy. It was for charity. I’m sure Harvey thought Led Zeppelin might consider regrouping because it was in aid of the relief effort. His task in organizing this concert was to try and get as many big names involved as possible, which he did. At least he tried to book them! Unfortunately Led Zeppelin wasn’t responsive, but I sure hope that despite not wanting to contribute a performance, they made a donation anyhow.
Hey, the man might be creepy, but he did a good thing here – he raised a lot of money for the cause. You shouldn’t take that away from him.
I wish someone would sell me to an Arab prince. . .