The argument that I made throughout the Harvey Weinstein revelations and #MeToo stories was that you should believe ALL women. If a woman who worked closely with Weinstein says he never harassed her or attacked her, believe her. If a woman says she took a meeting with Weinstein in a hotel room and he assaulted her, believe her. Believe all women. Believe their stories. Trust women to tell you their stories, trust women to tell you how they feel. So I believe Gwyneth Paltrow’s story about Weinstein sexually harassing her. I believe Meryl’s story about how she didn’t know what Weinstein had been doing. I believe Annabella Sciorra’s story about Weinstein raping her. I believe Jennifer Lawrence’s story about knowing Weinstein was a bully, but that he had never harassed her or abused her.
But Harvey Weinstein still thinks he has some authority, and still thinks that he can pit women against each other or that someone out there will have his back. Weinstein thinks that we’ll only believe some women – the women who said he never assaulted them – and not believe the dozens of women who said he abused them and worse.
Harvey Weinstein is pulling out all the stops to defend himself, and is now claiming three of the top women in Hollywood have not only supported him, but claims one even continued to work with him after his “alleged advances,” and even won an Academy Award because of him.
Weinstein just responded to the class action lawsuit filed against him and The Weinstein Company, and straight out says that there’s no way he could have used his power to ruin women’s careers because “Gwyneth Paltrow was allegedly harassed during the filming of Emma in 1994 … Yet, Paltrow went on to star in another Weinstein production — Shakespeare In Love,” and even won an Oscar for her role. He says “Paltrow was not so offended that she refused to work with Weinstein again, nor did her career suffer as a result of her rebuffing his alleged advances.”
The disgraced producer also uses Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep in his defense, claiming J Law told Oprah she had known Weinstein since she was 20 years old, and that “he had only ever been nice to me.” He says Meryl Streep even stated publicly that “Weinstein had always been respectful to her in their working relationship.”
He wants the case dismissed. As we previously reported, TWC has also responded to the class action, and puts the blame squarely and solely on Harvey.
One of Weinstein’s arguments is “why would a woman who has been harassed continue to work with her harasser?” Which is an argument that falls flat, since women in every industry continue to work alongside the predators who harass and abuse them because it really is that f–king prevalent, because they have to support their families, because they don’t want to be run out of their industry by one douchebag, and more. The other argument Weinstein is making is “hey, look at these women I didn’t assault!” Like, we’re too stupid to understand that he was only assaulting, abusing, harassing and raping half the women he encountered, NOT ALL OF THEM. Like, he wants a cookie for not abusing J-Law.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Harvey Weinstein’s defence is every abuser’s defence, right out of the abuse 101 book.
“Look I didn’t abuse all women so I am innocent!” (See Johnny Depp too).
Abusers (and rapists too) choose their victims carefully. The idea that abusers or rapists “cannot help themselves” and have an unstoppable instinct to abuse is totally spurious.
Exactly. Its also why i hated those statements that were like “well he was nice to ME”
That means nothing. Abusers calculate who they wish to target. He essentially using people’s statements as a defense. And i want to throw something.
Agreed. He wouldn’t even be able to use the “I didn’t do it to everybody, therefore I couldn’t have done it to anybody” argument if that wasn’t the way people already think. Weinstein is more calculating than people are willing to believe. It’s not surprising that the few A-list liberal women he didn’t treat that way were used partially for good PR purposes in case the decades od truth about him ever came out. I’m sure he (and possibly others in the Weinstein company) planned things out that way in advance.
It’s very, very telling that he thinks this is somehow a defense. Decent people would be horrified by even one allegation of abuse/rape/harassment. This person is cavalier to the point of ridiculousness.
No, Gwyneth Paltrow’s career didn’t suffer because she’s, uh, Gwyneth Paltrow. Look at who her family is. Even Harvey would have found it difficult to completely ruin her while maintaining a veneer of respectability. But what about all the actresses who do not come from famous, wealthy families? What about all the nobodies who were hoping for their shot to act in movies? How many of them have good things to say about Harvey, eh?
Meryl Streep has already released a statement concerning Weinstein’s attorny’s use of her words for his defense.
Lololol. He sounds like a toddler. “Mommy, I didn’t take ALL of the cookies… see? I left one for you, here, take it.” Maybe he and Trump can bump wankers in orange bathrobes behind bars.
Ohhh, that picture with Paltrow is disturbing. She looks quite uncomfortable.
I just came down to say that! If you look at Jennifer Lawrence she is leaning in and Gwyneth is tensed up and leaning away from him. He’s just beyond gross to look at.
Wow, this is the same excuse that Roy Moore’s defenders used: ‘Yes but think of all the teenage girls he DIDN’T molest at the mall!’
Why did I think 2018 would be different?
The thing about weak little bullies like Weinstein is they don’t go after the ones who seem like too much trouble, too loud, too “bitchy”, too confident, too strong. They go after the ones that are nice, naive, friendly, wanting to be liked and respected, vulnerable in some way, etc. It’s predator behavior. Even the men who aren’t sexual abusers behave this way, whether they realize it or not. I have a co-worker who *always* gets hit on by our male customers. She’s got this bubbly, nice, overly friendly, always wanting to please everyone type of personality. I, on the other hand, never get hit on. I’m professionally polite and friendly but I don’t give off an aura of “please take advantage of me, I’m so nice I’ll let you”. My aura is more of a, keep a businesslike distance or I’ll holler like a banshee and call the police on your ass. It never fails to amaze me, the difference in the type of treatment that we get from the same customer(s). They go after her like sharks while giving me a courteous berth. I haven’t quite puzzled out exactly what that means in the grand scheme of things but it sure is interesting to observe.