WEBVTT - Part One: It Takes A Village of Bastards to Make a Weinstein 0:00:01.400 --> 0:00:04.440 Hello, friends, and welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:06.600 show where we tell you everything you don't know about 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:09.039 the worst people in all of history. I'm your host, 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:12.280 Robert Evans, and this week my co host is Anna Hasnia, 0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:17.880 producer extraordinaire, co host of the podcast Ethnically Ambiguous and 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:21.959 all around woman about Town. Anna, Today we are talking 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:28.120 about Harvey Weinstein. What. Yeah, I knew. Yes, my my 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:31.319 guests for this show come in cold, but this is 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:33.640 a case that it is impossible to come in entirely 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.199 cold on because his whole saga has been one of 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.440 the biggest stories in the last couple of years. Yeah. 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:42.919 I couldn't help myself. I had to read all those 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.440 Running Fair articles about him, some great articles. I'm a 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.879 huge black cute fan, so like I was deep in 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.040 there trying to get involved, a big fan of Israeli 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.960 aligned spy agencies. Yeah, what can I say, I'm a 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.800 massad head. Um. We'll be digging into some of that, 0:00:59.400 --> 0:01:02.040 a lot of that. Actually, just as a heads up, 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.000 this is going to be a two part of episodes, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:05.399 So if you're one of those people who hates the 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.399 number two, you should be aware of that. Um. It 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.280 just wounded up being a lot longer in terms of 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.440 research than we had anticipated. It's one of those things 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.800 where every time I would finish reading an article and 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.720 set down to write, two new ones would pop up. 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.120 There's just so much on this case. I would go 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.000 so far as to say I can't imagine one person's 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:28.840 crimes being better reported than Weinstein's have. But it does 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:30.920 mean that there's a lot to talk about. So yeah, 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.160 we'll be dropping the second part of this on Thursday. UM. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.920 I just kind of wanted to get what is your 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:41.840 understanding of the culpability of the people around Harvey Weinstein. Obviously, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.639 Mr Weinstein has been accused at this point of dozens 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.400 of sexual assaults, multiple rapes, UH, spanning a period of 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:51.160 time from the nineties seventies until just a couple of 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.120 years ago, UM, and probably going on before and after that, 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.720 to be entirely honest, But what's your understanding of the 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.200 guilt of sort of the people around him? UM. I 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:05.640 do believe um his company with his brother was aware 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.440 of his behavior and use a lot of the resources 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.440 to cover it up. I don't think his wife knew 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.480 too much because I believe they lived somewhat separate lives 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.520 because people I feel like in that sort of industry, 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.200 we're so high up. You know, they spend a lot 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.200 of time traveling, moving around, and you know they have 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.800 busy lives and not a lot overlaps um. And I 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.520 think he he had a lot of money and power 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:30.640 to cover up a lot of things. So I do 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:32.959 think people knew, But I think it's also one of 0:02:33.000 --> 0:02:34.600 those things where you just don't touch it because you 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:37.359 want to protect your own like interests, you know what 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.280 I mean. That's exactly in fact what we're going to 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.200 be talking about today. So for those of you who 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.000 are a little bit less up to date on things, 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:45.000 I'm just gonna give a brief overview the case. In 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.600 October of last year, the New York Times and The 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:49.720 New York Are both started publishing what would become a 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:53.720 long series of articles about sexual assaults by Mr Weinstein. Initially, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:56.079 more than a dozen women accused him of sexual harassment 0:02:56.160 --> 0:03:00.160 and assault. After the first New York Times article, more 0:03:00.160 --> 0:03:03.880 and more accusations came coming in, including accusations of rape. 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.239 As of the recording of this podcast, at least eighty 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.240 five women have come forward with accusations uh he was 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.760 fired almost immediately from his job at the company that 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:15.200 bore his name, and he's just turned himself into the NYPD. 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:17.760 Which one of the things I thought was interesting about 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.480 him turning himself in is he was pictured with three books, 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.600 um which he was there for like two hours. You 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:27.160 don't bring three books to read to court where you're 0:03:27.160 --> 0:03:30.200 waiting to be arraigned. So he's holding a number of books, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:32.320 one of which was a biography of the director Elliott 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:34.880 kazan Um and I suspect he was trying to like 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.040 signal a message by the books he was carrying, because 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.920 kazan is or was a very popular and would regarded 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:45.520 director in like the forties and fifties whose career was 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.680 derailed by the Red Scare. He was a member of 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.840 the Communist Party. He was like taken in by the 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.560 House an American Activities Committee any named names, which like 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.240 further disgraced him. And so this biography is like someone 0:03:57.320 --> 0:03:59.920 looking trying to evaluate his legacy now and sort of 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.200 demon because he made all these great movies and like 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.600 it's a tragedy that he was railroaded by this moral 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.160 movement that came around and wound up in the long 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.160 sweep of history being seen as like horribly immoral, which 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.760 is clearly how Weinstein views himself. That's his hope is 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:18.760 that he's going to get I think he's signaling by 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.080 carrying this book into court that in thirty or forty years, 0:04:21.440 --> 0:04:23.480 people will look at me as a genius who was 0:04:23.560 --> 0:04:27.800 unfairly railroaded by a movement that yeah, yeah, that's the message. 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:30.039 He's right. Why else would you carry that book? Would 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:33.480 argue not the same thing. Well, no, And also like 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.800 one of the things about it that is, like Eliah Kazan, 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:40.640 you can like say what you want about the morality 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.320 of turning in people during the Red Scare, but he 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:45.560 was like an actual creative person who made art. And 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.680 it's kind of the same thing with Roman Polanski. Like 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.880 Roman Polanski you can say, you know, the crimes he 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.960 committed weren't worth the movies we got out of him, 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.159 but he made movies. Weinstein was never anything but like 0:04:57.200 --> 0:04:59.640 the money guy, Like he was good at picking scripts 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:01.320 and good it being like, oh yeah, I figured, like 0:05:01.320 --> 0:05:03.640 this guy might be famous, but he didn't make any 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:05.719 of the stuff that he's famous for, So like that's 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.480 but I feel like this guy in fifty years. The 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:11.520 most notable thing about him in the annals of history 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.960 is that his the accusations against him, sparked this movement. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:17.040 That's what he's going to be remembered for it. He's 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:19.440 gonna be remembered for anything he did as a producer, 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.599 not in the long span of time. Um. What a 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.839 piece of ship. He's a real piece of shit. Um. 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:28.240 And that's kind of why when we started working on 0:05:28.320 --> 0:05:31.160 this episode, I thought it was going to be more 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:35.920 of a dive into Weinstein's life and uh, everything he'd 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:38.159 done and sort of cut it apart piece by piece 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.560 like that. But the more I've read about him, he's 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.400 not an interesting guy. Like he's a bastard, But he's 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.359 not an interesting bastard. He's a dull, gross, boring, little 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.159 puddle of a man. I feel like, you can't be 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.840 that interesting if you're that interested in like raping women. Yeah, 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:55.240 there's just not much to say about him other than 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.480 the crimes he committed, and a lot has been said 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.719 about that, um and so. And I also think this 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:04.520 is a case where he's going to get as much 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.120 justice as a rich, probable rapist can get in our society. Yeah, 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.760 he'll be playing tennis in prison. He'll be playing tennis 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.120 in prison. But also like, it's not like Cosby where 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.440 he's getting caught right as he's too old to really 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:19.000 understand what's going on, and he's not losing any productive years. 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.200 Harvey probably would have had another ten twenty years running 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.279 a studio or you know, running his company if he 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.840 hadn't gotten caught. So he's his career is being cut short, 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.320 and that's a good thing. This is all along with 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:33.960 me saying this episode of Behind the Bastards is not 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:36.920 going to focus on Harvey Weinstein. He's not the bastard 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.640 that I think we're interested in right here, because when 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:42.960 you read all the articles that have been published in 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.440 the the interviews with everybody who was around him, it 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.480 becomes clear that it took dozens, if not hundreds of people, 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.880 um and maybe even more to make his behavior possible. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.440 Um So, my initial idea with this podcast was to 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.440 sort of catalog all the different people who helped him 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.039 hurt so many other people, um and it it. Over 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:03.480 the course of my research, I did find a lot 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:06.520 of enablers, like buildings filled with people who made this possible. 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:08.719 But I also found a sort of foggy layer of 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.400 doubt floating over everybody involved. That makes me kind of 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.640 uncomfortable and queasy. So it's one of I keep going 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:16.720 back and forth about whether or not this episode is 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.240 a good idea, but we're just going to dive into 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.440 it now. Um. That's interesting. It feels like when you're 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.280 that powerful, like God, the concept of power is one 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:29.720 of the most terrifying things you really think about it. 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:31.680 It almost feels like just doing something very normal, like 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:34.480 going to get coffee and and just hanging with your 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.400 friends is just it's not good enough anymore. Like once 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:39.760 you've lived that life, like the stakes have to be 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.080 raised and now it's you know, now, you know, for fun, 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.000 I invite women up to a hotel room and try 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:48.040 and get them to watch me shower naked. It's like, 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:52.040 so you're thinking about the the impact that the power 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.120 had on him, and I guess what I'm thinking about everyone? Yeah, 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.080 is that That's what I'm I'm interested in here. There's 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.840 a really famous Edmond Burke quote about the Nazis where 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:03.840 he says that you know, all that's necessary for evil 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.200 to thrive as for goodman to do nothing, And that's 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:09.160 a really famous quote. But I think that's almost comforting 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.760 to imagine that terrible people succeed because good people don't 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:15.960 do anything. The reality that you see in the Weinstein 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.760 case is that he succeeded for so long because a 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:21.800 lot of good people were willing to help him and 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:26.640 no new to an extent what they were doing. So, uh, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:31.360 let's dig again. Harvey Weinstein was born on March nineteenth two. 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:34.480 He and his brother Bob co founded Miramax. Bob has 0:08:34.520 --> 0:08:37.640 also been accused of sexual harassment. Together, they produced a 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.560 number of famous movies, including pulp fiction Goodwill, Hunting, The 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.320 Lord of the Rings in the King's Speech. In total 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.840 movies Harvey produced garnered more than three hundred Oscar nominations, 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.720 which is a lot of Oscar nominations. His earliest recorded 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:55.280 victim was Hope ex Dia More sometime in the seventies. 0:08:55.440 --> 0:08:58.280 She was an employee of a concert production company that 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.280 he ran. At the time, they were doing a job 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:03.040 in Manhattan and staying in a hotel. Harvey allegedly told 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:04.720 her there'd been a booking mix up and they'd have 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.480 to share a room. Then he allegedly raped her. His 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.640 most recent reported assault was in March fifteen, when he 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:16.600 allegedly groped Ambro Battlana. That's the bird's eye view of 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:20.600 Harvey Weinstein's career as both a production guy and a rapist. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.560 Yeah yeah, So in between those two assaults, possibly before 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.280 and after, there were dozens and dozens of other women. 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.840 Some claim they were groped, some claim they were raped. 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:33.000 The allegations of Lauren Seven are pretty standard. She's a 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:35.840 journalist who claims Weinstein lured her into an empty restaurant 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.280 he part owned and then hit on her. She says 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:40.319 that when she turned him down, he put his body 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:43.040 between her and the exit, told her to quote stand 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.199 there and shut up end quote, and then masturbated into 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:49.600 a potted plant. As you do, as you do because 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.400 one a woman turns you down. Yeah. So Arman and 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.320 Miriy was the manager of that restaurant at the time 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.920 when this happened, and when Seven came forward with her 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.000 story last October, he came forward to because Will he 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.600 hadn't seen that incident. He realized that he seems Harvey 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.199 do something similar. Um, it was a quote from him. 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.440 What I remember about this incident is that my sux 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:12.160 chef came into my office, furious telling me that quote 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:14.560 some fat fox saying he's an owner he didn't know 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.320 the name, had come into the kitchen with a woman 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:18.040 and shoved a hundred dollar bill at him and told 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.360 him to get out. So yeah, so even in kitchens 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:26.400 with people around, Yeah, yeah, yeah, God, Marvy, people cook, 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:28.559 people have to eat that food. Oh, it's about to 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.960 get where if that if that's if that's what's kicking 0:10:31.040 --> 0:10:36.280 you out about this story, it's about to get even worse. Um. So, 0:10:36.400 --> 0:10:39.160 according to Armand Armand hears this from the chef. The 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:40.679 chef is like, yeah, this fat fuck just gave me 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:42.600 a hundred bucks and shoved me out of the kitchen. 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:45.720 So he goes back into the kitchen with the chef 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:50.520 and he witnessed Weinstein quote fixing his belt. Um and 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.840 then said quote. The chef picks up a pot that 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:55.559 had been placed on the stove. It had been defiled. 0:10:55.640 --> 0:10:59.680 It was so bizarre, we couldn't believe it happened. He like, 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:04.760 is he just did a pot and a potted plant 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:09.439 at the same restaurant. You. I hope they burn that 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.440 pot because that is the most unsanitary. I feel like 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.520 you burned the restaurant at this point, because if there 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:21.640 are two stories of him ejaculating into random objects at 0:11:21.640 --> 0:11:26.760 this restaurant he owned, he came on every square, is 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:31.319 that is that come? This place is covered, These tablecloths 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:37.040 were black this morning. Everything. Yeah, I'm sorry. What's the 0:11:37.040 --> 0:11:41.480 restaurant's name? Oh jeez, I I just forgever. I don't 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:47.200 think it's walk by operational anymore. So that's kind of 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.800 a good microcosm of the sort of things he got 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:51.480 up to. But it also gives you an idea of 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.280 how many people are involved when you start talking about complicity, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:58.680 because is that sous chef a little complicit that particular case. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.080 It doesn't sounds like it, because Harvey was just shoving 0:12:01.120 --> 0:12:02.920 a money at him and saying, get the funk out 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:04.640 of here, right, But he if he didn't know that 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.559 the woman was dragged in there, because you don't really 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.680 know in a situation exactly exactly, it's really unclear, and 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.000 Armand said something like that, It's like I didn't say 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:15.880 anything about it because I didn't know anything about the 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.640 woman involved. I had no idea what was going on. 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.880 It was just some rich guy paying a masturbate in 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:25.560 a pot that he technically owned, So yeah, it's a 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.120 little messed up. Armand does claim that after Lauren sibbons 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.439 plant story went viral, Weinstein called him and asked him 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.480 to deny that he'd ever done anything like that. Of course, 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:37.800 by that point, the Harvey Weinstein name was as muddy 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.679 as name's get. Armand refused to do as he asked. Um, 0:12:41.000 --> 0:12:42.480 But that was the time when it was easy to 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:45.240 say that Harvey Weinstein because at that point he was 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.680 on his way down exactly, which is nothing against Armand 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:49.120 maybe he would have done the right thing if he'd 0:12:49.160 --> 0:12:51.000 known something was wrong in the moment. I don't know 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.520 the guy, but what is important is that for more 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.200 than thirty thirty years, almost everyone that Harvey Weinstein asked 0:12:57.440 --> 0:12:59.599 to keep his secret was happy to help him do it. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.040 David J. Pecker is the CEO of American Media, Inc. 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:08.240 They are you know, okay, what does that mean? You're 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:10.560 with him? I'm familiar that he's also on Trump's team 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.880 and has some friends in Saudi Arabia. He's got friends 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.120 in Saudi Arabbi. He's on Trump's team, and he is 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:18.959 American Media, Inc. Is the company that's responsible for a 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.559 number of magazines, including the National Inquirer, which it just 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.880 so happens that the studio we're in has a lot 0:13:25.920 --> 0:13:27.840 of issues of The Inquirer, and the one I'm looking 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.040 at right now, the big title of the story is 0:13:31.120 --> 0:13:35.200 Exhumed John Bennet's Body. Now, so that's they're classy people 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:38.839 to the Inquirer. Yeah. So David J. Pecker is the 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.000 CEO of American Media, Inc. Uh. They own the National Choir, 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.120 Weekly World News, etcetera. Harvey Weinstein and Pecker have been 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:47.839 good friends for years. Their friendship was so deep that 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.439 Harvey became known as an f o P or friend 0:13:51.559 --> 0:13:57.560 of Pecker, which they're not not great at acronyms. Uh. 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:01.000 Itsually have been friend of Penis, fread of Pain. I 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.920 mean that's basically what friend of Pecker means, friend of David, Like, like, 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.839 why why white Pecker? Um? Yeah, that's a status he 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.200 apparently shared with President Trump. Uh. And when you are 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:14.959 a friend of Pecker, you get special treatment from not 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:17.719 just The Inquirer and the Weekly World News, but the 0:14:17.760 --> 0:14:21.400 whole tabloid industry. Um. So I'll be listing all the 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.560 sources for this this podcast on our website, this info 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:27.960 right now, comes from a New York Times article entitled 0:14:28.000 --> 0:14:32.880 Weinstein's complicity machine. Um quote. American media was known to 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.600 sometimes help out allies and trouble with a strategy known 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.600 in tabloid newsrooms as catch and kill, acquiring exclusive rights 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:43.640 to damaging stories and then not publishing them. So basically 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.200 like this is the first in the clearest case of 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:49.520 another person involved who's definitely a bastard, because fucking pecker. 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.160 That's not helping Harvey for money. It's not helping him 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.560 because you're afraid he'll funk up your career. It's helping 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.120 him because he's your buddy and you want him to 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.000 keep his sexual assaults under wrap. Rodan Pharaoh and The 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.800 New Yorker laid out a very active relationship between the 0:15:03.840 --> 0:15:06.880 Inquirer and Weinstein. He talked to a woman named Elizabeth Avalon, 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.920 who is the former wife of Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez left 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.480 her for Rose McGowan. UM, So obviously there's understandable kind 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:18.040 of bad blood between the two ladies. Uh. Rose claims 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.080 that Harvey Weinstein raped her in his hotel room during 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.680 the Sundance Festival. UM and inquires reporter figured Evalon might 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:27.560 have some dirt on Rose McGowan, and of course it 0:15:27.680 --> 0:15:29.960 was his job as an inquiry reporter to dig up 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.440 dirt on anyone accusing anything of Harvey Weinstein to try 0:15:32.480 --> 0:15:35.600 to discredit them. So he started calling Avalon. He called 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:37.520 her over and over and over again. Uh. And then 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:39.920 he started reaching out to people she knew, like friends 0:15:39.960 --> 0:15:42.560 and family, um, just kind of harassing them until she 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:46.080 agreed for an interview. So Avalanne sits down for an 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:48.720 interview with this reporter and he repeatedly pushes her to 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.440 say bad things about Rose McGowan. Um. She wanted to 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:54.080 make sure that the call was off the record and 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.400 only for deep background, and the reporters said that it was, 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.160 but he recorded the whole thing and afterwards he handed 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.520 according to a mayor Can Media's chief content officer, Dylan Howard, 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.920 who emailed it to Harvey Weinstein and said, quote, I 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.560 have something all caps amazing. Eventually she laid into Rose 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.120 pretty hard, which again that's a that's American Media's chief 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:18.120 content officer talking. Weinstein replied to him, quote, this is 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:21.480 the killer, especially if my fingerprints are just the letter 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.120 are not on this end? Quote. Howard assured him that 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.480 the fingerprints weren't on it and said, this conversation is 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.200 all caps recorded. Okay, I'm sorry he wrote just a 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.560 letter R. Yeah, my fingerprints are not on this. That's 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:41.320 more yet the whole word fingerprints and but you don't 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.240 have time for the R. That's stupid. I know. There's 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.960 a lot of reasons to hate the man. Um Howard's 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.320 definitely culpable here um Like, that's that's gross behavior and 0:16:52.440 --> 0:16:55.200 for what it's worth, Like Avalon during the call said 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.880 some not pleasant things about Rose McGowan because understandably, like 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.600 they had, they had a history. She has expressed a 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:04.880 lot of regret about it and is obviously as solidarity 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.880 for her for the whole being horribly abused by Harvey 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.719 Weinstein thing. So yeah, that's that's like, that's sucked up 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:13.280 for a lot of reasons, because you're not just trying 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:15.840 to bury the accusations of a woman who was harmed. 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:20.320 You're like playing on somebody's heartbreak and pain in order 0:17:20.400 --> 0:17:23.120 to like it's just it's almost impossible to like look 0:17:23.160 --> 0:17:25.080 at something like a sexual assault and be like how 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:28.159 can I make this worse? But use a bunch of 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.200 women and dry them out, and then I hope it 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:35.240 helps protect a man who yeah trash. Yeah, it's almost 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:38.600 like a work of art in terms of being shitty 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.160 people like it took a lot of garbage all coming 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:45.080 together to make this landfill. So yeah, Pecker and Howard 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.439 are both pieces of crap, as well as the reporter 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.800 who did that hatchet job. I feel like that's that's 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:53.359 also a bad guy. They're gonna be a lot of 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.560 terrible reporters in this story. But so we're already up 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.880 to at least three or four other complicit people. Plus 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.960 was this reporter someone who worked for like Inquiry, Yeah, 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:05.960 it was an Inquirer reporter? Would she ever talk to 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:09.600 an inquire reporter? Because he kept calling her family and friends. 0:18:09.720 --> 0:18:12.000 So she finally was like, fine, talk if you won't 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.800 talk to anyone else, I will talk to you like that. 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:18.760 That's that's like where it got um. So yeah, there 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:21.560 there are just when we're talking about just the press, 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:24.600 there are dozens of people implicated in keeping Harvey's secrets. 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:27.920 And we're going to get into another one of those 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.160 stories in a minute, but right now, we gotta sell 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:36.040 some stuff. You like stuff right hugely. You got wallets 0:18:36.119 --> 0:18:41.280 and money, anyway, go grab some money, Grab as much 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:43.520 money as you can and then tune into these ads. 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:52.960 We're back and we are talking about Harvey Weinstein, or 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:55.280 rather the people who enabled him to do the things 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:57.520 that he did. All of the other bastards and the 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:02.240 Harvey Weinstein story. We just talked about two guys, Pecker 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:07.000 and Howard, who both ran the company that owned the 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:11.120 National Inquirer, and the Inquirer essentially helped dick up dirt 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.359 on Weinstein's accusers. Now we're gonna talk about another story 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.280 in that vein. UM. In two thousand fourteen, Emily Nestor 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.040 was working as a temporary employee for the Weinstein Company. 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:22.880 She'd been there a day when Weinstein promised to help 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.840 her career if she fucked him. Um. Well, yeah, the 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:29.960 old classic I'll help your career if you fuck me. 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:32.600 I mean he waited a good three or four hours, 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:36.719 which is a lot of restraint for Rvy Weinstein. Uh. 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:39.560 She turned him down. Um, and then he made her 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:42.080 keep turning him down for more than an hour. Um. 0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.040 Emily complained to her coworkers and they did the right thing. 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.840 They reported it to management in a formal complaint thing. 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.399 And this is the company he owned. Just means nothing. Really, well, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.760 there's other people. It's a big company, like there are 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.040 other people and as well, we'll get into there was 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:01.119 some resistance from within the corporates structure to Harvey, like 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:04.159 the company bore his name, but he was not in 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.800 absolutely was too big a company to be an absolute 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:11.000 control of UM, although obviously he had a lot of power. Anyway, 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.000 other people reported a formal complaint. Thing is made, and 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:17.200 eventually the matter does get to Harvey. Uh. He invited 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:19.720 Nestor to breakfast right after that, and I'm going to 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:23.320 quote from another Running Pharaoh New Yorker article here. Throughout 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:26.640 the breakfast, she said, Weinstein interrupted their conversation to yell 0:20:26.680 --> 0:20:28.879 into his cell phone and raged over a spat that 0:20:28.960 --> 0:20:31.400 Amy Adams, a star in the Weinstein movie Big Eyes, 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:34.440 was having in the press. Afterward, Weinstein told Nestor to 0:20:34.520 --> 0:20:36.320 keep an eye in the news cycle, which he promised 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.680 would be spun in his favor. Later in the day, 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.520 there were indeed negative news items about his opponents, and 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:44.760 Weinstein stopped by Nestor's desk to be sure she'd seen them. 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.359