Harvey Weinstein was “outed” as a predator by the New York Times on October 5th. In the three and a half months that followed, we have a very long list of women who were victimized, abused, harassed, assaulted and raped by Weinstein over the past 35 years. He preyed on women for so many years. And I understand the desire to cast blame far and wide, to try to figure out who knew what and to assign secret motives for staying silent about this and that. I understand it, but it makes me tired. I think some people were complicit in Weinstein’s behavior, of course. He really did have people procuring for him in Europe, and it wouldn’t surprise me if he had people procuring for him in Hollywood and New York as well. But were those procurers actually Hollywood agents? Rose McGowan thinks so – she said CAA agents were “pimps.”
Rose McGowan is being hailed for her bravery in calling out the powerful CAA talent agency for enabling Harvey Weinstein. She refers to CAA agents as his “pimps.” CAA represented many of the actresses who were sent to meetings with Weinstein at his suite at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
“Harvey worked very closely with CAA. It’s amazing they’ve managed to escape all this scandal unscathed,” one Hollywood veteran told me. CAA has even been hailed for its embrace of the #TimesUp movement against sexual harassment and for providing its offices in Los Angeles, New York and London for simultaneous meetings.
Attached to the invite for Wednesday’s meeting, McGowan tweeted: “Who do you think is behind this ‘great’ pr? Why, it’s the company of pimps that sent so many into the Monster’s Lair themselves. CAA. #TIMESUP fakes.” And when Weinstein was desperately trying to kill Ronan Farrow’s exposé in the New Yorker, he called a CAA managing partner, Bryan Lourd, who told Weinstein that Farrow, a CAA client, wouldn’t meet with him.
CAA issued an apology last month after it was reported that at least eight of its agents had been approached with complaints about Weinstein’s behavior.
“We apologize to any person the agency let down for not meeting the high expectations we place on ourselves, as individuals and as a company,” the statement read. “We unequivocally support those who have spoken out publicly.”
A spokewoman for Weinstein said, “Mr. Weinstein categorically denies engaging in any non- consensual conduct or alleged threatening behavior and it’s absolutely absurd to refer to CAA agent’s as ‘pimps.’ Any time Mr. Weinstein or the Company dealt with CAA, each matter was 100 percent professional. When Mr. Weinstein’s team contacted Mr. Lourd to see if his client would like to discuss his investigative report, he stated Mr. Farrow had no interest in speaking and that was the end of the inquiry.”
While Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Penélope Cruz and Reese Witherspoon are still repped by CAA, Rae Dawn Chong left in 1990, when she says her complaint of being harassed by fellow CAA client Steven Seagal was ignored. A CAA spokeswoman had no comment.
The specificity with which Weinstein denies it makes me think that Rose McGowan touched a nerve. And I had completely forgotten about the fact that CAA issued a statement admitting that EIGHT agents knew their clients’ stories about how Weinstein had mistreated them. Gwyneth Paltrow told few people about what Weinstein did to her, but one of the first people she told was her agent. Ashley Judd as well, right? Many of the women who were approached or harassed by Weinstein in hotel rooms told their agents what happened. So… yeah, I believe that CAA, as an agency, knew what was happening and they continued to not properly represent their female clients, and they continued to help Weinstein victimize women.
Photos of Weinstein with CAA agents Kevin Huvane and Chris Andrews, courtesy of Getty.
They knew. And they protected him.
The more facts that come out about Weinstein’s depredations, the more this looks and smells like a criminal conspiracy to perpetuate Weinstein’s serial rape, stalking, and harassment. I don’t know about CAA, but it sure looks like people at Miramax and The Weinstein Company aided and abetted his crimes both before and after the fact. Those ex-Mossad agents, etc. that he employed to stalk and harass his victims seem to have both aided and abetted his crimes and committed crimes of their own. Since these acts were committed in multiple jurisdictions, it is past time for the FBI to look into this matter. Wealthy individuals cannot be permitted to set up a criminal enterprise of this type with impunity—everyone connected with this capo’s “rape mob” needs to be tried, convicted and sent to prison.
Time to name names.
Yes. He didn’t do what he did for decades all alone. They should pay as much as him.
They did. Bryan Lourd, Carrie Fisher’s ex-husband and her daughter Billie’s father. Why isn’t he on suspension?
Of course they did.
Hmmm. I have nothing bad to say about Ronan Farrow, but the fact that he is represented by CAA seems like a conflict of interest. I don’t expect to see a series of articles examining how the CAA as an institution enabled Weinstein’s abuse from him, and that seems wrong.
I think he left CAA last year exactly for this reason.
Farrow dumped CAA when that NYT story about Harvey’s Complicity Machine came out. It mentioned Weinstein trying to use Lourd to help kill the story. Before that, the Times dumped their fancy lawyer when Farrow wrote Harvey’s Army of Spies, which exposed that he was simultaneously working for Weinstein and NYT.
Talk about small, incestuous circles of power and influence ….
I believe Reese Witherspoon’s husband Jim Toth is CAA management……..I believe Reese is a ‘leading lady’ in the ‘movement’. Complicit?
Thank you, finally someone to say the true.
It is deep into the hipocresy that the actors don’t even recognize how it is all implicit and the implactions of their actions, they just choose a selective outrage and selective moral compass.
Reese W. is a strong role model for women in Hollywood and backs up the talk with her producing choices. I’m not going to speculate about her husband before any accusations have been made. He is not one of the CAA agents cited in the NY Times piece I mention below.
Wasn’t Courtney Love dropped or punished by CAA after calling out Weinstein in a red carpet interview back in 2005 or 2006?
Yep
Omg just (figuratively) burn the place down. Are those eight agents still employed there? !? Why hasn’t 90% of their clients fled in disgust/solidarity? Are agents so hard to come by?
-clueless and horrified in middle America
The NYTimes ran a good piece on this “Harvey Weinstein’s complicity machine,” which details the complicity of the “witting, unwitting, and many in between.” Of course CAA was in the first category, as the article makes clear.
I hope this isn’t considered threadjacking, but how has he not been arrested yet?! There was at least one open case in NYC. Wtf?
Yea I believe CAA is complicit. There have been way too many references of people telling their agents or references to people being threatened by CAA to believe they knew nothing
Some people were calling Timeup a PR front agenda based on where the meetings were happening, who was the owner of the house officer etc, at the time I didn’t understand but now it makes more sense.
Of course CAA knew and just now they are keeping a lot of abusers and complicit agents with them.
Yes for a long time I’ve believed CAA is stank. I hope they get exposed.
This seems disgustingly clear. The same practice seems prevalent in modeling: keep sending fresh unknowing flesh to known predators as long as that man’s work is generating commissions for the agency.
At some point this should be investigated as organized crime, no?
Hylda Queally is CAA and represents women like Cate Blanchett, Robin Wright, Kate Winslet and Jessica Chastain. None of them strike me as the kind that would suffer harassment without fighting back or at least change agency. Jessica Chastain actually acknowledged Queally as the one who protected her and advised her against predator behaviour. So I think it depends of every single agent and how they managed their clients. I think people like Queally have a strong work ethic and moral code but others in the same agency might not, starting for those two mean greedy c*nts who lead the agency: Brian Lourd and Kevin Huvane. Of course they knew. They protected the powerful clients, and didn’t care about the minor ones.
I think the Williams/ Wahlberg situation demonstrates just how autonomous agents are. Yes, they all work under the umbrella of the same agency but it’s a cut throat, secretive, competitive environment.
Individual agents who engaged in wrongdoing, plus the CAA owners should absolutely be dragged. I wouldn’t drag everyone who works there, though.
It’s really too bad that women like Meryl Streep get dragged for not stopping it, when these agents – MALE agents no doubt – knew full well what was going on. If there is ANYONE – besides Miramax employees and board members of course – that knew what was going on, it was the agents. They hear everything.