Between damning reports from The New Yorker and The New York Times, and following an ousting from the company that he helped found, Harvey Weinstein is experiencing a rapid demise from his position as a Hollywood power-player. And while the allegations range from sexual assault to sexually harassing young actresses to win favor and keep roles, it appears that his reputation as a power-wielding bully extends into the music industry, too.
Following a social media campaign to make more men come forward with stories of Weinstein’s misconducts, actress Rose McGowan took to Facebook to voice her displeasure about how that social media platform was at getting results. She notes that she’s received plenty of support on Twitter and Instagram and men are finally starting to speak out against Weinstein. But on Facebook, McGowan wrote, “it’s crickets.” The post is ultimately further calling out her Hollywood friends, calling the people refusing to come forward “weenies” and “archaic.”
But in the comments, Coachella founder and Goldenvoice CEO Paul Tollett left a supportive message to McGowan, noting that for the music industry, the previous week had been pretty traumatic, before going on to tell a story of a time that Weinstein tried to bully him at his own music festival. The story is a reminder that people in power can abuse it in many facets of their life, and knowing what we know now about Weinstein’s many transgressions, it’s hard to be surprised that he’d try to strongarm the festival founder at his own festival. Tollett refers to him as “Hurricane Harvey”
Check out a full transcript of Tollett’s story below, along with a screenshot of the original post on Facebook:
Hey Rose, most of the people in the music business have had an emotional week with the Las Vegas shootings and Tom Petty news, the heaviness can be felt all around. Let’s hope that’s why people haven’t commented. I don’t know the movie business people at all, once in a while i sit next to them at sporting events but often don’t recognize them but here is something related. about a year and a half ago hurricane Harvey blew into one of my festivals looking for passes, i helped out but the passes weren’t good enough, i had given him the pass type i wear which doesn’t get you in the actual artist trailer so i explained an artist’s compound is not under my domain. He warned me that he could call who he thought was my boss (he had done some research) or maybe he would call who he thought was the most powerful manager in the business (there were photos online of them together so i believed they were close). That’s probably the way he has solved things before. It was just how you would imagine the worst movie industry person would be, zero humility, completely demanding with an air of intimidation. Yea there was the customary follow up thank you from the assistant and i made the best of it so as not to have an enemy in the movie business for what ever reason but i remember being stunned as it was happening thinking why am i not fighting this but there is an aura/physicality about him that needs checked. I know nothing about any other rumors other than what i’m reading, woah.
