Report: Harvey Weinstein Had Media Enablers

Harvey Weinstein

For decades, stars of Oscar-winning movies produced by HarveyWeinstein appeared on the covers of glossy magazines, chitchatted with late-night hosts and provided fodder for gossip columns and broadsheet features while the uncouth executive partly responsible for their success maintained his special status in Beverly Hills and TriBeCa.

Somehow the whispers concerning his alleged hotel-room and workplace abuses never threatened his next big deal, industry award or accolades, reports The NYTimes.

The real story didn’t surface until now because too many people in the intertwined news and entertainment industries had too much to gain from Weinstein for too long. Across a run of more than 30 years, he had the power to mint stars, to launch careers, to feed the ever-famished content beast. And he did so with quality films that won statuettes and made a whole lot of money for a whole lot of people.

“The unfortunate reality of Hollywood is that if someone has money, then they can generally find some kind of audience of people who are interested in working with them,” said Kim Masters, the editor at large at The Hollywood Reporter.

Ms. Masters had been chasing the Weinstein story for years. She said she had gotten near “the end zone” once, only to bump up against the ultimate silencer: fear.

“At the last minute, the source withdrew,” she told NYT.

She said she wanted to believe that times were changing, given the number of women who have put their names to the words that derailed the careers of Bill Cosby, who faced criminal charges that resulted in a mistrial this year, and Bill O’Reilly. But she also wonders aloud whether trouble had finally found Weinstein because he was no longer the rainmaker and hitmaker he had once been.