There has been a seemingly endless list of accusations against Harvey Weinstein in recent weeks, detailing decades of sexual assault, harassment, and rape committed against women in the industry. One particularly damning account came from Ronan Farrow, who wrote a piece for The New Yorker and spoke to a number of women who were willing to go on the record with their own accounts about Weinstein. Farrow explained on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert that this was only the first piece about Weinstein and that he would continue to expose “this machine that was so instrumental in keeping this quiet as long as it was quiet.”
Farrow followed through with that promise on Monday evening, releasing a second piece with The New Yorker detailing the extraordinary lengths that Weinstein went to in order to bury his behavior. According to the report, Weinstein employed an extensive network of investigators and ex-Mossad agents to silence his victims, particularly Rose McGowan.
“Two private investigators from Black Cube, using false identities, met with the actress Rose McGowan, who eventually publicly accused Weinstein of rape, to extract information from her. One of the investigators pretended to be a women’s-rights advocate and secretly recorded at least four meetings with McGowan. The same operative, using a different false identity and implying that she had an allegation against Weinstein, met twice with a journalist to find out which women were talking to the press. In other cases, journalists directed by Weinstein or the private investigators interviewed women and reported back the details.”
The article explains Weinstein’s intimidation tactics in detail, using his influence to bully actresses, media personalities, and journalists who could expose him.
“The explicit goal of the investigations, laid out in one contract with Black Cube, signed in July, was to stop the publication of the abuse allegations against Weinstein that eventually emerged in the New York Times and The New Yorker. Over the course of a year, Weinstein had the agencies “target,” or collect information on, dozens of individuals, and compile psychological profiles that sometimes focussed on their personal or sexual histories. Weinstein monitored the progress of the investigations personally. He also enlisted former employees from his film enterprises to join in the effort, collecting names and placing calls that, according to some sources who received them, felt intimidating.”
You can read the entire chilling account here. Weinstein is currently being investigated by both the LAPD and the NYPD following the allegations of rape.
(Via The New Yorker)
