Harvey Weinstein
Harvey Weinstein sent Hollywood's elite an email begging for support on Sunday, to no avail
On Thursday, after The New York Times published its exposé on decades of sexual harassment allegations against and payoffs by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, Weinstein called Hollywood talent agents asking any of them to come to his defense, the Times reports. None did. On Sunday, after the board of The Weinstein Company put him on leave and launched an internal investigation into the allegations, Weinstein sent an email to studio executives and agents, saying he was "desperate" for their help. "Do not let me be fired," he wrote, according to a copy of the email dictated to the Times. "If the industry supports me, that is all I need."
At this point, Weinstein wrote he believed he could still "resurrect myself with a second chance," after "therapy and counseling as other people have done." The board, chaired by his brother, Bob Weinstein, fired him Sunday night, effective immediately.
Hollywood and Washington, D.C., have pretty clearly turned against Weinstein, after the Times article made him "a national pariah," Sharon Waxman wrote at The Wrap on Sunday, but the Times was a "media enabler," too. She was referring to an article she wrote for the Times in 2004 about a reputed Weinstein woman-acquirer at Miramax Italy, which included allegations of a payoff to a British woman for an unwanted sexual encounter with Weinstein. The article was "gutted," Waxman wrote, suggesting that intercession from Weinstein, Matt Damon, and Russell Crowe might have been involved.