You’ve probably heard that the New York Times published a story recently detailing the decades of sexual harassment and assault claims made against film producer Harvey Weinstein for decades. The story led to the eventual ousting of Weinstein from his own company, and a whole lot of unanswered questions.
Among those unanswered questions were “What the f***ing f***?” and “Why are powerful men consistently terrible?” But also “How could this have possibly remained secret for 20 years?!?!”
According to The Wrap, the answer to that last question lies (unsurprisingly) with the men around Weinstein at the time of the assault allegations. Among them, notable actors like Matt Damon and Russel Crowe.
Way to go, boys.
The Wrap founder and former New York Times reporter Sharon Waxman provided details about a story she was working on in 2004 that touched upon some of the sexual misconduct allegations made agains Weinstein.
As she was researching and writing the story, multiple people reached out to her to defend Weinstein and then-head of Mirimax Fabrizio Lombardo — who allegedly was brought on to help Weinstein with his sexual exploits, including organizing nights with Russian escorts. Classy.
Among the people reaching out to defend Lombardo were Matt Damon and Russel Crowe, two actors who’ve worked extensively with Harvey Weinstein.
So while all of this is still up in the air legally speaking, never forget that powerful sexual predators like Weinstein never really have the ability to act alone. If someone is engaging in sexual harassment for decades with little to no consequence, it’s because there are people and institutions directly protecting them.
The good news is, the more stories like this become public and have consequence, the less likely they’ll happen again. Eventually no one, regardless of how powerful they are, will be able to get away with this bulls**.
